USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > Two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, held at Moses Brown School, Providence, R.I., sixth month, 24th, 1911 > Part 6
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With a courage that was sublime they faced the dungeon and the scaffold, never rendering obedience to evil, never resist- ing the agencies of evil with any like agency, never wearying in their endurance of suffering, until their enemies became their friends.
The Quakers obtained their conquest by the same means the Master used for the conquest of the world. Jesus' patient endurance of wrong and passive resistance of evil, and the love that suffered so long and was kind made His death shame the wickedness of the world, brought men to conviction and con- trition and achieved the greatest conquest ever known.
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ADDRESS
BY ISAAC SHARPLESS
About the year 1700 two antagonistic conceptions of Christian life and duty were in conflict in the northern colonies of America. One which we may call the Calvinistic, rigidly demanded literal orthodoxy as applied to all the relations of life. Its test was the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New. Its deductions from this authority were enforced by invincible logic and any variations from the acceptance of the conclusions were sufficient to place the doubter out of the pale of the Chris- tian fold. If it did not make the state and the church a united body, it did demand that the state should enforce the decrees of the church, and that orthodoxy should be a test of capacity for public service. A godly commonwealth, with the Bible interpreted by skilled theologians as its basis, was the aim of its several policies.
The other conception for convenience we will call the Quaker conception. It, too, acknowledged the authority of the Bible, but the New Testament rather than the Old was back of this recognition. Its tendency to literalness was tempered by another doctrine that nothing outward was absolutely essential to the reception of divine truth but that God and man were in direct relation and communion with each other and the divine will could be and was received by those who were in a responsive attitude without the medium of priest or book. This took away some of the hardness from their theology and created tolerance and kindliness in their relation to other bodies. The conscience of every man was supreme for him. No power had a right to demand its abrogation. It might be, and probably in most cases would be, more or less erroneous as measured by the stand- ard of abstract truth, but it would tend to rectify itself in so far as it was pure and alert. It could not, therefore, allow itself to crush the conscience of another by any decrees of state. Its godly commonwealth must be gained not by legal enforcement,
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but by spiritual convincement, and where it had control there were no favored churches.
Nor was it certain in 1700 which of these two tendencies was likely to prevail. By this time something of the rigidity of New England orthodoxy had abated and the Friends were spreading at a rapid rate in Rhode Island, Long Island, for fifty miles in every direction from Philadelphia, and to some extent in the South. They were still possessed of some of the enthusi- asm which the first generation had brought over from England from the days of their suffering and devoted zeal. George Fox had impressed upon them the idea in his earlier ministry that they were not founding a sect, but preaching a spirit which would gather into its fold in time all the Christian bodies; and some- thing of this catholic outlook was still existent.
If we compare the bodies which are the lineal descendants of the Calvinistic conception with those which trace their lineage back to a Quaker ancestry, it would seem at the present time as if the Calvinists held the field, and the Quakers were an insig- nificant and relatively impotent body. If we compare, however, the spread of the ideas for which Calvinism stood with those held by their opponents, it is the Quaker conception which rules the thinking Christian world, and Calvinism has capitulated, thrown aside by its own organizations. The literalness and the rigidity of Puritan theology have gone and no churches would more surely deny them than those who have kept the denominational name and machinery of the early Puritan sects. The Quaker ideal has permeated church and state. Its fundamental theol- ogy of direct divine communion is almost universally accepted and its position in regard to church freedom in the state finds no opposition. We have the curious spectacle of the principles of a sect once relatively strong finding their way into almost complete acceptance while the body itself has continually dwindled in size and direct influence. On the other hand we find the followers of the other tendency originally of equal or perhaps greater vitality who have grown more and more in numbers and force while at the same time they have accepted in frank acknowledgment the principles which they once opposed. The Puritan bodies have deserted their principles and flourished. The Friends who have always held the trium- 5
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phant throne of life and religion have barely held their own in numbers and have lost some of their characteristic basis.
I have not time to analyze this interesting situation. It is worth a volume. I can only state what seems to me to be one reason for its existence. The Puritan body founded Harvard in 1636, and Yale in 1701. It founded them primarily to provide a highly educated ministry. Students were not confined to this class but, had it not been for this want, these colleges would never have been called into being at the time they were. The Friends did not feel such a need. Their doctrine of the suffi- ciency of divine guidance in ministry made them less careful to create a theological center. There was, therefore, no Quaker college in the colonies and Friends grew up, not by any means ignorant, for they were, up to a certain stage, well and universally educated, but without the great leadership of the congregational bodies. A necessary condition of progress is far-seeing leader- ship. A body whose education is mediocre may be very worthy but is not very progressive, and the Friends with all their incli- nation towards justice and righteousness were hardly as open to adapt themselves to changed conditions as the bodies which in every locality had at least one trained leader who kept in touch with advancing thought and to some extent carried his congregation with him. And so it came about that Friends became in time more or less imitators of the past rather than developers of new truth, while the Puritan bodies were frank enough and wise enough to abandon untenable conditions and adapt themselves to advancing thought. The effect of two such opposing tendencies could not long remain in doubt. A defen- sive organization would gradually waste itself away, however effective as a defense it might be, while another which led out into the wide fields of growing thought and knowledge, if it had always a profound desire and regard for the truth, would find itself through many tribulations entering into a larger inheritance.
From this characterization of Quakerism we must except their attitude towards questions of moral reform. Here they have always been leaders. Why, it is difficult for me to tell, and I can think of no better reason than the one which they themselves would probably have given, that when they got together in their
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silent meetings, or still more silent, secret chambers, with a desire to know God's will, they really got what they asked for. They were certainly not more intelligent than other bodies nor were they more responsive to external influencés, nor were they in a general way more anxious for the right thing, and except for this devotion to their consciences and their belief in its enlight- enment by the Divine Voice their priority in many moral move- ments would be difficult to explain. But certain it is that they have reached positions which the best tendencies of the future have frequently justified. Why did they, one hundred years before lotteries were a recognized evil, alone among the churches, refuse to have anything to do with them and kept all of their enterprises clear of them? Why did they in the days of the early development of the anti-slavery movement again take positions about one hundred years ahead of the Christian civi- lization around them? Why have they consistently preached the views into which the Nation is just entering with regard to the unrighteousness and inexpediency of war? Why were they pioneers in the establishment of hospitals and insane asylums on modern principles? Is any other explanation of these things possible than the one which we have intimated?
On the other hand that which the Friends everywhere, down to the last half century, held as their most priceless possession, the meeting for worship, free, without human head or leader, without prearrangement of services, without any compulsion upon any one to speak unless the divine impulse was felt, with the recognition that to hear the Divine Voice there must be the attentive and responsive soul in silence before it, without dis- tinction of worldly condition, as to learning, or station, or sex, or age, this meeting seems not to have met the recognition among Christians which the attitude of Friends to moral problems has commanded. It is indeed spoken of as a beautiful opportunity for a few mystical souls, but for the busy American multitude the pragmatic test is applied. And there it seems to fail. In Great Britain it holds its own among Friends and in certain sections of this country. There are some of us who believe that it will come to its own again, that prophetic ministry is not an impossible ideal, that individual worship in silence in the congregation is still an achievement not only beautiful but
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very practical, that the revelation of God's will comes down in double portion upon such a waiting company, that such a simple form is almost the necessary logical consequence of what is most vital and potential in the principles of Quakerism.
But here again while the churches in general have not adopted our theory they have allowed it to modify their own and could we but be intelligently faitliful to it we could probably work it out on the side of church prosperity. But as a distinguished bishop has recently said, "Just as we were about to adopt the Quaker theory, at least in part, you flopped over to the other side." It is true that this "flop" came as a reaction from an untenable and unprofitable traditionalism but it carried with it something that was precious and it seems to me essential to the raison d'être of our Society as a distinctive body. Some of us may have to trace our steps backwards into logical unity with our fundamental historic position.
Historically speaking, a great change, it seems to me, came over the Society of Friends as a result of the Revolutionary War, and this change has created the Quakerism which many of us have known in our earlier years and which in many places seems to be passing away. The change had a double effect. It on the one side increased the tendency towards that devotion to the . past which in certain ways produced stagnation and incapacity for adaptation. On the other, it drew the forces of Quakerism together and made them more loyal and more devoted to the special principles which were recognized as fundamental. The history of Friends up to the end of the eighteenth century was very largely identical in the different colonies. The same forces, the literature, the itinerant ministry, the reverence for the first generation, were at work, producing similar results, and while the facts which I am going to state are based on investigations among the Friendly records of Philadelphia I feel quite sure that they will apply with almost equal significance to New England, New York, or the South.
It is probably not correct to say that the Friends were Tories in the Revolution, if by Toryism one means sympathy with the British crown and its exactions. Some of the more influential merchants of Philadelphia, undoubtedly were, as were their counterparts in New York and Boston, but there is very little
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evidence that the body of Friends sympathized with the British. Their official attitude was one of neutrality, not because they believed the American side was in the wrong, but because they believed that war and revolution were not justifiable under the circumstances. In Philadelphia something like four hundred of them were disowned by the monthly meetings for actively joining the American cause. So far as I know, there are no records of more than a half dozen who were similarly treated for participation with the British, and I suppose that these four hundred men who joined the Continental Army or who took part in the state government, represented a considerable popu- lation who were prevented by their peaceful scruples from joining the movement.
The yearly meeting as a whole adopted a policy of non- participation in government as a result of the war and the quiet unaggressive spirit which had been developing in the Society some years prior to the Revolution was brought to a head by the stress and strain of war times. The Friends seem keenly to have felt the change which resulted in their position before the public. Hitherto they had been the rulers of the state and had impressed themselves upon its institutions. Now they were, over large districts, unpopular and proscribed and often penalized by fines and imprisonment. It seemed to them that this might partly be due to their unfaithfulness. In the midst of the struggle their yearly meeting urged what they called "a reformation." That reformation was worked out through all the subordinate sections with great fidelity and the products of it had a permanent effect upon the succeeding generations down to the present time. It comprised several features:
(1) In the first place, the long drawn out struggle against slavery must be brought to a conclusion. First testifying against the slave trade and then against the iniquities of slavery itself, finally against slavery as an institution under any and all circumstances, they gradually had brought their membership up to the point of general manumission. A few members, however, held back, and now it was decided that the skirts of the Society must be absolutely clear. While the armies were marching through the country, committees were going around
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among the few remaining slaveholders urging them not merely to release their slaves but to pay them the debts which they owed for unrequited services, and if the efforts of this committee were unsuccessful, the disloyal Friends were to be removed from membership, so that during the time of the war the last Quaker slaveholder disappeared from the North.
(2) In the second place the same service was performed toward the matter of tavern keeping. Taverns in Colonial times had been part of the necessary machinery of travel, and both solid and liquid refreshment were assumed to be part of the entertainment, but the drinking habits of Friends had become a matter of concern as well as their slaveholding habits, and while total abstinence as a principle was not much taught, the sale of liquor was so evidently fraught with evil consequences that it was generally felt that Friends could not engage in it, and after visiting committees had worked on the subject, the matter was brought to a termination during the war. While one committee reported the last of the slaveholders, another was reporting that the last of the tavern keepers had agreed to give up the business.
(3) These were matters of moral import, but other questions were also impressed in this "reformation." One was the matter of schools. There had been many small Friends' schools during Colonial times, so that most Friends had been taught the ele- ments of education, but this was not at all general, and besides the schools were, to a large extent, mixed, and were not accom- plishing the purpose of shielding the youth from supposed de- moralizing influences. Still another committee, therefore, acting upon the advice of the yearly meeting, was going about among these meetings during the war urging the establishment of schools under the care of school teachers with Friendly sym- pathies and influences so that every child could be reached by these educational advantages. This also was successful and set the pace for the future in the matter of education. It meant that all Friends' children should receive elementary education and this result was brought about. It meant also that this elementary education should be, so far as possible, denomina- tional and separate from outside influence, and it also meant no provision for higher education, so that except in private
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ways there was probably less opportunity for college training in the Society of Friends for a number of years after the Revo- lutionary War than there had been previously when many Friends were taking the matter in their own hands.
(4) This reformation also meant the closing up of the ranks in support of the peculiar testimonies of Friends and made them more and more separate from the world. They felt that it was a lack of this fidelity to the teachings and methods of the past that had brought them into trouble in defending themselves from external encroachments; that they must be absolutely faithful to their religious duties, their attendance at meetings and their care of each other; and that they must separate themselves, so far as possible, from all other denominational influences. Their reading was to be narrowed very largely to Friends' books and their attendance at other places of worship was to be prohibited. They were to bring up their children in strict observance of the simplicity which was laid upon pre- vious generations and a committee to carry out this part of the concern visited families, first to their own houses to see that no superfluous furniture or decorations existed and then the same general concern was extended to the membership in general. Here again the committees labored through the war times when the sympathies of the membership were cemented by common suffering and when the faithfulness of many Friends had pro- duced an enthusiasm for the cause which previously had been somewhat lacking. The rather exclusive type of Quakers with which many of us have been familiar resulted, it seems to me, from tendencies which had their strongest impulse at the time of the Revolutionary War.
And so there settled down upon the Society of Friends as a result of this great national cataclysm, a zeal for moral reforms and a rigid standard of personal morality, in every way admir- able; a devotion to historic Quakerism, of unreasoning fidelity, in many respects pure and beautiful, but not in accord with the progressive spirit of American life and which, untempered by a broad intellectual outlook, resulted in the divisions and diver- sions of the past century.
It remains for us, in this era of colleges and wider views, to gather together the essential features of Quakerism where our
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Colonial fathers left them, throwing aside unchristian attitudes on the one hand, and the opportunist spirit, the desire for quick returns, which leads into all manner of anachronisms on the other, and gathering ourselves into the spirit of early Quakerism, give to the world an effective though perchance for a time weak demonstration of a simple direct progressive religion, a demon- stration which America needs and which she will accept.
RESPONSES
Interesting responses for their several Yearly Meetings were made by the following delegates:
Amos Kenworthy, for California
Yearly Meeting
James Moore, .
Western
Clarence M. Case,
Iowa
Paul Wright,
Wilmington
Edward Mott,
Ohio
Timothy Nicholson,
Indiana
L. Lyndon Hobbs,
North Carolina
Walter Haviland,
Philadelphia
Allan C. Thomas,
Baltimore
James Wood,
New York
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Edward N. Mennell, " London
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THEN AND NOW
BY L. HOLLINGSWORTH WOOD
The Quaker of the olden time! How calm and firm and true Unspotted by its wrong and crime He walked the dark earth through! The lust of power, the love of gain, The thousand lures of sin Around him had no power to stain The purity within.
With that deep insight which detects All great things in the small And knows how each man's life affects The spiritual life of all, He walked by faith and not by sight, By love and not by law; The presence of the wrong or right He rather felt than saw.
He felt that wrong with wrong partakes, That noting stands alone, That whoso gives the motive makes His brother's sin his own. And pausing not for doubtful choice Of evils great or small, He listened to that inward voice Which called away from all.
O spirit of that early day, So pure and strong and true Be with us in the narrow way Our faithful fathers knew.
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Give strength the evil to forsake, The cross of Truth to bear. And love and reverent fear to make Our daily lives a prayer.
J. G. WHITTIER.
Friends can hardly expect me speaking to a young people's meeting to feel that all the Golden Age is in the past.
That there have been heroes and heroines whose lives were brilliant gleams in a dark time and bands of devoted men and women who did magnificent service for their age we have had abundantly proven to us.
That Friends were once a great force, religious, moral and political, there is no doubt. What interests me is the glory which has not departed from this Israel and while paying the tribute of admiration to the glorious men and women of our past and gathering inspiration from the resplendent examples of their lives, are we not right in feeling that our service is a glorious one and for the present and that our hopes and aims must be for the future.
In the subject "Then and Now" I do not suppose it was the intent to limit us to 1661 and the first yearly meeting which was held here for Friends in New England, but also New York and New Jersey so that we feel that we are joining in a celebra- tion with a sense of proprietorship as well as the ownership which comes by love.
How great is the debt of Quakerism past and present to New England it is without the limits of this paper to discuss but that we are all eager to acknowledge it is evident from the gathering here today and in the response of every Quaker assembly to the messages of Whittier or Jones or Barton which stir us to nobler aims and better deeds.
So in our discussion tonight, let us consider the Friends "Then" as of the whole period when Friends were knocking at the door of opportunity and driven out by a desire to serve were undertaking journeys or attacking positions, religious, legal or political, which stirs our admiration.
England at the time of the rise of the Quakers was in a most troubled state and one fitted to make the wisest counselors shake
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their heads for they had no precedents to follow. "In England they had become," as the historian Green puts it, "the people of a book and that book the Bible."
When Bishop Bonner set up the first six Bibles in St. Paul's (quoting from an old letter) many well-disposed people used much to resort to the hearing thereof especially when they could get any that had an audible voice to read to them.
The language of the Bible became the language of the people and we find such extraordinary names among the children of some of the Roundhead or People's party as Dust of Ashes and Oil of Gladness.
It was to a people divided between the pleasure loving gentry of the royal adherents and those who groaned beneath the harsh doctrines of Calvinism that these men and women who had found "one even Jesus Christ who could speak to their condi- tion" came with their inspiring message of Light and Truth.
They had hardships to endure both from the natural diffi- culties of travel and from the opposition that their idea of equality met at the hands of those in power whether church or state for all parties joined hands against such preachers of equality and democracy.
They were robust times (for which we have a lurking admira- tion) and people who were in a position to exercise authority were not apt to be called to account for putting some wandering preachers in jail. They had strict laws against vagabonds and very likely they were needed. Jails were not pleasant places of sojourn. Elizabeth Fry had not begun her work to better conditions and even if one felt no disgrace in going to jail for a principle it was an experience of physical hardships such as might well deter a stou ter heart than many of us would feel like claiming.
(I doubt whether New England would have been troubled by the Wood family if the invitation had been issued by Mary Dyer to accompany her in the "cause of Truth" to hospitable Massachusetts.)
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