USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 2 > Part 11
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meetings over, the men's meeting began, which was large, precious and weighty. The day following was the women's meeting, which was also large and very solemn. These two meetings were for ordering the affairs of the church. When this great general meeting was ended, it was somewhat hard for Friends to part; for the glorious power of the Lord, which was over all, had so knit and united them together, that they spent two days in taking leave of one another and of the Friends of the island; and then, being mightily filled with the presence and power of the Lord, they went away with joyful hearts to their several habitations." About the same time Mr. Fox held a meeting at Providence in a great barn, which, he said, "was so thronged with people that I was exceedingly hot and perspired much".
Tradition narrates, too, that during this visit he preached under a tree, in Old Warwick, on land since owned by John Holden, and held also a large meeting at Narragansett, to which people came from Con- necticut and other parts around.
Altogether an immense impetus must have been given to Quakerisın in Rhode Island by this progress through it of the Arch Prophet of the System. It is a curious commentary upon Roger Williams's just dis- tinction between the discarding of all carnal weapons, in combating what he judged to be heresy, and the duty of drawing against it the sword of the Lord, that no sooner had George Fox set his foot in the Colony than the " Apostle of soul liberty " promptly sent him a formal challenge containing fourteen propositions to be debated between them. Nor is it hard to imagine the note of victory, with which that prince of controversialists announced that the fox had been "digged out of his burrows". Soul liberty, plainly, did not, in his view, mean. immunity from the doughtiest kind of spiritual blows. After the departure of Mr. Fox we meet with such entries in the min- utes of the mecting as the following, showing that everything was proceeding in the regular order: "It is agreed on and settled at A generall ycarley meeting at ye house of Wm. Coddington in Rhoad Island, ye 11 4-m 1683-The yearley Generall meeting of Friends worshiping of God, -Thearc assembley at Rhoad Island Begins ye sec- ond sixth daye of ye 4th month in Every yeare." "At a Generall yearley Mccting at the house of Walter Newberrys at Newporte in Rhoad Island ye 15th daye of ye 4th mo, 1691, The severall meetings were called over."
In 1699 Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting was established by the Yearly Meeting, and comprised, at that time, the Monthly Meetings of Rhode Island, Narragansett and Dartmouth (Mass.). With this
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action the period of early general organization in Rhode Island may be taken to have been completed.
The Tenets of Rhode Island Friends .- It was not without Scrip- tural authority that these plain people adopted their peculiar name, since the Master declared, "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends." S. John xv, 15.
In their fundamental articles of belief the Friends did not depart from the doctrine of the Church of England, from which most of their earliest members originated. The Declaration of Faith, published in 1672 by one of the pioneers of the Society, sounds like an amplified form of the Apostles' Creed. "We do own and believe," it declares, "in the only wise, omnipotent and everlasting God, the creator of all things, both in heaven and earth ; and we own and believe in Jesus Christ, his only and beloved Son, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary ; in whom we have redemp- tion through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins; and we own and believe that he was crucified for us in the flesh, without the gates of Jerusalem, and that he was buried and rose again the third day by the power of his Father, for our justification; and that he ascended up into heaven and now sitteth at the right hand of God. He it is that hath now come in the Spirit He is our mediator that makes peace between God offended and us offending
Concerning the Holy Scriptures, we do believe that they were given forth by the Holy Spirit of God, who, as the Scripture itself declares, through the Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost".
What the Friends discarded were the forms and ceremonies of the Church, its ministry, and government. They disapproved of music, both instrumental and vocal, as an adjunct of worship, marring, as they judged, its strict simplicity. They rejected the outward forms of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, being convinced that the Lord appointed no external rite or ceremony for observance in His church. Acting upon the Sermon on the Mount, they condemned war and fighting, and declined to take oath before a civil magistrate, making a simple affirmation on giving legal testimony. The principal positive distinctive tenet of the Friends, at the outset, was an emphatic asser- tion of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and of His immediate enlight- ening and guiding operation on the heart, approximating direct in- spiration. George Fox used to preface his addresses with such phrases as : "The Lord hath opened to me," "I am moved of the Lord," and
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"I am sent of the Lord God of heaven and earth." His followers were often content to sit through a meeting in complete silence, en- gaged in reflection and self-examination and listening for the "still small voice" of the Spirit. They inculcated simplicity of dress and absence of personal adornment and required great plainness of speech, using, in direct address, the singular pronouns, "thee" and "thou", in the place of the more courtly "you". They also dispensed with all titles and honorary prefixes. As the Puritans had well-nigh exhaust- ed the Old Testament in their search for praenomens, so the Quakers, for the same purpose, turned to the list of abstract virtues, especially in the case of girls, and such names became common among them as Experience Hull, Content Richmond, Desire Greene, Deliverance Rey- nolds, Thankful Ball and Comfort Boomer, some of them lingering in Rhode Island even to the present day. The Friends discountenanced revivals as recognized religious instrumentalities for an extraordinary accession of numbers, and had little faith in rapid and exciting con- versions. It was also one of their principles to abstain from active proselytism. Over all their assemblies and to a good degree over all their lives, there brooded a benign spirit of peace, quietness, honesty, harmony and love.
The Polity of the Rhode Island Friends .- In dispensing with the form of ecclesiastical government to which they had been accustomed in the Church of England, the Society of Friends was moved to adopt one of extreme simplicity. The highest and most comprehensive body provided for is the General or Yearly Meeting, which is autonomous and, except as to moral influences, independent. Each Yearly Meet- ing is composed of several Quarterly Meetings, which, again, contain severally a certain number of Monthly Meetings. Every Monthly Meeting in turn embraces two or more Preparative Meetings and Meetings for Worship, which are the lowest form of organization, corresponding to local churches in other bodies.
Thus the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, along with some eight others, such as the Salem Quarterly Meeting and that of Dover, is a member of the New England Yearly Meeting, and is itself constituted of five Monthly Meetings, Providence, Greenwich, South Kingstown, Rhode Island and Swansea (Mass). Each of these latter, on the other hand, is composed of several Preparative Meetings, the East Green- wich Monthly Meeting for example, including at present those of East Greenwich itself and Coventry, and formerly those also of Wickford and Cranston.
It is to be noted that the territory covered by the Rhode Island
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Quarterly Meeting is not exactly conterminous with the State, Swan- sea Monthly Meeting embracing Fall River and Somerset, lying in Massachusetts, while on the other hand a small portion of northern Rhode Island belongs to the Smithfield Quarterly Meeting, the far larger part of which extends over Massachusetts. One of the quaint- est elements in the administration of the Friends Society is what is styled a Meeting for Sufferings, it being a committee, appointed by the Yearly Meeting, consisting of from twenty-five to fifty members of worthy character, sound judgment and exemplary life, to review all manuscripts relating to the principles or testimonies of the Society, proposed to be published, to correspond with other Yearly Meetings and, in general, to represent the Society in all cases where its reputa- tion and interests are concerned. This Meeting originated in New England at a very early period and is believed to have taken its name from the sufferings of Friends, who were persecuted for their faith or distrained to do military duty contrary to their principles, and whom it was authorized to advise and, if necessary, assist, as best wisdom might direct. In later times the Meeting for Sufferings has come to correspond quite closely to the Standing Committee of other religious bodies. Each Quarterly Meeting has its own Book of Disci- pline and certain queries respecting the purity and consistency of the members are required to be answered periodically. As to the ministry, there is not the same distinction between clergy and laity which prevails in other bodies, but any exemplary persons, male or female, whose public appearance in speaking is favorably regarded and whose remarks are profitable and edifying, are recommended or approved and can travel in the ministry, generally without any perma- nent abandonment of their ordinary calling.
The Quakers during the Eighteenth Century .- The first half of the eighteenth century was the blooming time of the Society of Friends in most parts, if not in all, of Rhode Island. Many of the influential men of the Colony, its governors and judges, were Quakers. For the time it shared with the Baptists the prospect of permanent predominance in the community. In Newport, Quakerism was thriv- ing under the gentle teachings of the calm and persuasive Friend, Samuel Fothergill. But while on the island of Rhode Island, at the very beginning of the century, it had already become so well estab- lished that half of the inhabitants were Quakers and about one-third of the houses of worship were theirs, it was not until this period that the system began to expand itself most rapidly upon the main land, meeting-houses being built in quick succession at Greenwich, Lower
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Smithfield, Woonsocket and Providenee. The first house of worship of any kind raised on the western shore of Narragansett Bay was the Quaker meeting-house at Greenwich, built in 1700 on a site about a mile southwest of the present eenter of the village, the spot being still marked by the old Quaker burying-ground.
Here Nathanael Greene, the father of Gen. Nathanael Greene, the "Liberator of the South" in the Revolutionary War and the "Friend of Washington", was, after a few years, often the preacher. It is not very long ago that an aged citizen passed away, who distinctly remem- bered the general mounting his horse on emerging from the old meet- ing-house. In those early days it was a saying that "the people of Greenwich were either Quakers or nothing". A great number of leading families belonged to the Meeting and, for years, the Society continued to increase. Marriages were, during that period, common in the meeting-house, instead of oeeurring, as at present, at very long intervals, there having been but one, it is believed, in Greenwich meeting-house, for about fifty years.
But soon after the middle of the eighteenth century this prosperity began to deeline. The number of members of Greenwich Meeting was diminished by the death of the elderly and the tendency of the young to stray away to other places, where more attractive modes of worship were presented.
Another meeting-house built during this period of marked extension was that of Lower Smithfield, now Lincoln. Ereeted in 1704 by de- seendants of Thomas Arnold, a well-known coadjutor of Roger Wil- liams, the building is presumed to be the oldest Quaker meeting- house still standing in Rhode Island. A little later, in 1719, other Arnolds of the same stock and members of the Comstoek family. together organizers of the Society in the northern part of the State, built a meeting-house at the Union Village, Woonsocket, upon the site of the later one.
In 1718 Providenee Monthly Meeting was set off from Greenwich and in 1724 or 1725 a meeting-house was built, through the influence of members of the Arnold family, mentioned above, on Stamp- er's Hill, in the northern part of the town. This was removed in 1745 to the corner of Meeting and North Main streets and replaced in 1844-5, by the present house of worship. In 1721 a meeting for worship was settled in Warwick, and about 1730 a meeting-house, now used by the Baptists of Oaklawn, was built in Cranston. Such a rapid extension must have justified eventually unrealized expectations of growth.
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The Revolutionary War brought heavy trials to many Friends, who, faithful to their previous testimony against the sinfulness of war, were subjected to suspicions of disloyalty and exposed to what at least seemed like persecution. While the Militia Law had been modified in 1730, for the especial protection of the consciences of Friends, public opinion could not, of course, be held in leash. In the case of Nathan- ael Greene, indeed, as in that of others, the peaceful principles of Quakerism could not subdue the promptings of a patriotic and advent- urous spirit. In taking up the sword they were forced to act against the wishes of those dearest to them.
Moses Brown .- The cardinal event in the history of the Friends of Rhode Island, in the eighteenth century, was the accession to their ranks of Moses Brown. For half a century thereafter Mr. Brown was the most distinguished and in- fluential figure among the Quakers, not only of his own State, but of all New England. Much that was then accomplished was due to his OLD QUAKER MEETING-HOUSE Near Quinsnicket, Lincoln, erected in part in 1704. liberality and energy and the momentum of his genius and character. Belonging to a family already of importance in Rhode Island and destined to become of still greater prominence, he was able to do for the Society what, probably, no other individual in the State could have done. Up to the age of thirty-five Mr. Brown was under Baptist influence, being a direct de- scendant of the Rev. Chad Brown, the earliest pastor of the First Baptist Church in Providence, and being surrounded by relatives and friends of that persuasion. The sacrifice, which such a change in all his associations at the threshold of middle life must have cost him, evinced the strength of his convictions and the cheerfulness of his attention to the promptings of duty. It is related that the tender emotions aroused by the death of his beloved-wife inspired him with a desire to give liberty to his slaves and the sympathy shown him in this course by those earliest advocates of human freedom, the Friends, appears to have supplied the initial impulse towards causing him to throw in his lot with them.
On April 28, 1774, at his own request he was "received under the care of the Meeting", and it is not too much to say that for sixty-two
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years he continued to adorn his profession. The declaration of Mr. Brown when, in 1814, he offered to present land for the site of the Friends School, seems to supply a key to the seeret spring of his deep- ly contemplative nature. "Let us proceed," said he, "in conformity with the Divine mind, that we may hope for His blessing". His whole lengthened life was one consistent effort to frame itself "in conformity with the Divine mind". He was a leader, because he was himself led by the Spirit of God. Having manumitted his own slaves he was prepared to draw others to a similar course by becoming one of the founders of the Abolition Society of Providence.
Being a friend of popular edueation he was made a member of the first sehool committee of northern Rhode Island.
Although the establishment of the Cotton Industry was by no means primarily a religious or even a philanthropie undertaking, yet the encouragement rendered to Samuel Slater by Moses Brown exhibited the far reaching seope of his vision, "enabling him to see", as has been said, "a hundred years into the future". Mr. Brown was one of the founders of the Providence Athenaeum. He was, also, a found- er of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture in Rhode Island and of the R. I. Bible Society. He was a founder, likewise, of the R. I. Peace Society, as well as of the R. I. Historical Society, presiding at the organization of the latter.
It is impossible to estimate too highly the foree of his vitalizing and enlightening influenee, through all these and other instrumentalities, upon the community in which he dwelt for almost a hundred years.
But all of Moses Brown's other activities are eelipsed by the chief achievement-the foundation of the Friends School. Nothing else has done so much to consolidate and perpetuate the institutions of the Society in this Commonwealth. The consideration of this undertak- ing belongs, however, more properly to the aeeount of Quakerism in the nineteenth century. It is mentioned here because the Yearly Mecting Boarding School in Providence is the most enduring monu- ment of Moses Brown.
The Quakers during the Nineteenth Century .- The Friends School. -As the eonformanee of Moses Brown with the Society of Friends was the principal external event in its history during the eighteenth eentury, so that of the nineteenth was the establishment of the great sehool, in Providenee, under its aegis. But while the final aeeomplish- ment of the enterprise belongs entirely to the latter period, the first movements towards it are, just as certainly, to be eredited to the former. The training of the youthful members of the Society lias
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ever been the most important and interesting concern of Friends. From almost the beginning of Rhode Island Quakerism its adherents stood out as friends of Education. "After erecting their Meeting Houses", says Governor Arnold, "the Quakers, from whom flow nearly all the good and perfect gifts in the early history of Rhode Island, proceeded to establish schools in various localities". Early in 1777 a number of gentlemen were appointed to draw up a plan for a Free School among Friends, and thirteen persons, all Quakers, among them Moses Farnum, Moses Brown and David Buffum, were appointed the first School Committee in northern Rhode Island, already referred to. This philanthropic zeal among Quakers awoke such an interest in educational matters that more general measures soon began to be taken to establish public schools, free to all, which, in their later development, have formed such an important element in the history of the State.
It was during the War of the Revolution, in 1779, when the Yearly Meeting was being held, temporarily, in Smithfield, that the first steps were taken for the founding of a school for higher education, which has grown to be the Friends School. Moses Brown and fifteen other men were then appointed to consider "a method to promote the estab- lishment of schools for the education of youth among Friends". In 1780 a subscription was started for such a school, much of it being the humble contributions of poor people, supplemented, however, by, what then seemed a munificent gift, five hundred and seventy-five dollars from the ever-generous Moses Brown.
It was not, however, until 1784 that the way was opened for the actual starting of the school, in a small room in the old Quaker meet- ing-house at Portsmouth, very appropriately near the spot pressed by the feet of the first Quaker exiles from Massachusetts, a century and a fourth earlier. The first principal and, it would appear, the only teacher was Isaac Lawton, a preacher and a poet, with an annual salary of £50. Although the chief alleged object of the enterprise was "the elevation of poor and helpless children" from remote and rural regions of New England, yet one of the pupils was Moses Brown's young son, Obadiah, who, at his death nearly forty years later, left to the Friends School the largest bequest which had then been made to any school or college in America-one hundred thousand dollars.
The school at Portsmouth was not sufficiently supported, there never being more than about twenty scholars, and after four strug- gling years was compelled to close its doors, thirty-one years passing away before the enterprise was resumed. In the mean time
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Moses Brown continued to be the treasurer, investing the seanty fund of the sehool to sueh advantage that, in 1814, he was able to inform the Meeting that it had grown to nine thousand three hundred dollars. At the same time he offered to give to the institution, out of the west- ern part of his homestead farm in Providenee, the noble estate of forty- three acres, which the Friends School still continues to oeeupy. Under this incentive the subseriptions flowed in freely and it beeame possible, on January 1, 1819, to reopen the doors of the school in the present prineipal building, with no fear of their again being elosed. During the years that remained to Mr. Brown, before his death in 1836, at the age of ninety-cight, he continued to give the school eonstant care, making it the objeet of frequent donations and often inspiring it by the benediction of his presence.
As originally constructed, the first edifice built for the school was intended to aeeommodate one hundred students.
The first two superintendents were Matthew and Betsey Purington, who continued in office for five years.
About a dozen teachers were employed for different lengths of time during this period, Samuel Boyd Tobey being among them. Moses Brown eame in his ehaise to be present at the start. Only three stu- dents appearing, the opening of the school was postponed for three days and even afterwards the number increased but slowly. By the middle of February, however, there were sixty seholars, the average number for 1819-20 being seventy. In 1828 the average for the year had increased to one hundred and twenty-one, with two hundred and seventy-four different pupils. In 1829 the average was one hundred and thirty-five, with three hundred and sixty-five individuals during the year. Thus rapidly did the sehool grow. Plain language was in use and plain apparel, with nothing for show in form or eolor, was enjoined, no rolling eollars or extra buttons for ornament on eoats being allowed. Among the most distinguished of the instructors in the early history of the Friends School was Samuel J. Gummere, the organizer of the Classical Department, afterwards a distinguished president of Haverford College. In 1832 appeared as literary prin- cipal the most eminent man ever connected with the sehool, Dr. John Griseom. The faculty at this period contained the names, also, of Dr. Pliny Earl, Moses Cartland, Moses Loekwood, Samuel Austin and Elizabeth Osborn, later Mrs. Austin.
Under these able teachers the average number of students rose, in 1833, to one hundred and seventy-two. This was the flowering-time of the Friends School in the first thirty-five years of its history.
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After the departure of Mr. Gummere and Dr. Griscom, in 1835, the number of scholars declined for some years. The advent of Joseph and Gertrude (Whittier) Cartland, in 1855, introduced a new era. They succeeded, during the four years of their tarry, in giving a fresh impulse to the cause of higher education among Friends in New Eng- land and in making their cultured influence widely recognized.
A long and successful administration was that of Albert K. Smiley and his wife as principals, with Alfred Smiley as associate, from 1860 to 1879. During this period Alumni Hall and the Boys' School Room Building were erected and much was done to open the doors of the school more widely to the public, outside the Society, a greater num- ber of students than ever before being in attendance. It is not too much to say that Mr. Smiley laid the foundation of that subsequent prosperity, which has been so amply enlarged under the efficient prin- cipalship of Augustine Jones, now, for more than twenty years, at the head of the school.
During this administration the funds of the institution, already considerable, have been increased by nearly one hundred thousand dollars, and what is even better the former unadorned and sombre atmosphere has been relieved by works of art and the cheering influ- ence of instrumental music, involving little less than a moral revolu- tion in the old time traditions of the school. This period may be styled the era of the recognition of the beneficent office of the beauti- ful. Valuable pictures and examples of sculpture are to be observed on all sides, and even the bedrooms of both the boys and the girls are rendered cheerful by such adornments. Color, instead of the former whitewash and bare boards, abounds everywhere. A tasteful building, lately constructed, for instruction in all branches of art, and grand pianos and other instruments of music in profusion, are constant reminders of the wisdom of the present management. From being a place where music and the fine arts were emphatically tabooed, the Friends School has come to be a spot especially resorted to by those who enjoy gazing on high class paintings, marbles and bronzes and listening to sweet strains. Such a capacity for adapting itself in harmless ways to the developing tastes and convictions of the age is a sign of life, and bespeaks for the school a long continued existence. In 1894 there were two hundred and nineteen students in the course of the year. In 1900 there were about two hundred and seventy different persons under instruction, with about twenty officers.
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