Quaker Biography: 17th-19th Century
QUAKER BIOGRAPHY: 17TH CENTURY
About the Author—Born in southern Sweden in 1878. Her doctorate of theology served as background to her career as a wrier (e.g. Saint Bridget of Sweden; William Penn; James Nayler: The Rebel Saint (1931).) [Her subject often had to do with the relation between the individual and the group].
Foreword—Among the earliest example of the tension between inward guidance & corporate authority was the conflict between George Fox the “founder” of Quakerism, & James Nayler, a quartermaster in Cromwell’s army who was converted to Quakerism. In the autumn of 1656, under the stress of physical & spiritual exhaustion, he allowed himself to be led by adoring, fanatical women through the gates of Bristol as a 2nd Messiah. George Fox only barely pardoned him & Nayler’s name was shunned for nearly 200 years. [Emilia Fogelklou Norlind’s] James Nayler: The Rebel Saint (1931) presented a more just & charitable perspective of Nayler. She saw Fox as the antagonist whose increasing assumption of authority had precipitated the disaster. During the years since writing her book the author’s viewpoint had shifted & grown, giving credit to Fox for an indispensable service. The present pamphlet is arranged from Fogelklou's 1939 Pendle Hill lecture notes.
I—So accustomed are we to think of George Fox as “Quakerism’s Founder” that we fail to realize that his organization of the movement was an affirmation of a social and spiritual development which had already taken place, made possible by the emergence of 1st-hand religious experience in many “1st Publishers of the Truth.” 1st Publishers went out to discover those who were already one with them in spirit. Braithwaite wrote: “Farnworth, Aldam, and probably other members of the Balby group, had reached the Quaker experience before Fox came among them.” John Lilburne the Leveller said, “George Fox . . . a precious man in my eyes, his particular actions being no rules for me to walk by.” [For] the very heart of Quakerism was this: Find your own teacher.
The first Friends challenged the whole feudal system in church and state. Quakers not only sought human equality on social and political grounds, as had the Diggers and Levellers. Their goal was spiritual revolution. The Thou of a community could not exist but for an I which had made contact with that greater self, which tied one to one’s fellows. The feudal background of their childhood imbued them with a tradition of loyalty and discipline, a great asset to any group life. The earliest phase of the Quaker movement was woven through with [these kinds of people] who had first met the spirit of God in themselves and then in one another.
The early pairs of messengers were: Howgill and Burrough, Camm and Audland, Caton and Stubbs, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, and George Fox and James Nayler. Several in the opposition to Quakerism seemed to reckon Nayler as the chief Quaker. [He was on his farm recovering from disillusionment and a breakdown after Cromwell proved to be less than the crusader he first seemed like. He heard a voice on his own and was further inspired by Fox, who became his hero and Father, although Fox was younger].
II—During stressful times Nayler faced a range of problems—family, land, property, government—which the unlanded, unmarried, politically indifferent Fox never faced. From 1655-56, the struggling group counted many dead & broken among the 1st Publishers of Truth, who lived swiftly & dangerously. Submissive adherence or adoration from new members menaced the spirit of Fellowship, & tempted to vanity or self-complacence.
An unconscious victim of these forces, [an overwhelmed and adored] Nayler struggled alone in London. It was an atmosphere breeding Messiahs [and not just Nayler]. He allowed Martha Simmonds and her husband to “worship” him, fearing to crush the indwelling seed in any one; [Martha’s adoration was motivated by her resentment of Fox]. Word of these demonstrations reached Fox, imprisoned at Launceston; he was greatly disturbed by the news. From Launceston, he issued summons and instructions which, because they came from a distance, took on the color of edicts. Nayler could not withstand Simmonds and fled to Bristol.
Fox’s suspicions of Nayler’s exalted state were for weeks based on rumors, & aggravated by visits by [“Nayler’s women”], who upbraided him for dominating Quaker movement, & bade him bow down to James Nayler. [Shortly before extravagance at Bristol], Fox & Nayler met at Exeter. They displayed neurotic & stubborn behavior, with neither giving in to the other, & both feeling betrayed by the other].
Nayler's adoration by his disciples, both men & women, & his response to that adoration, weren't isolated phenomena, nor were they limited to the Quaker movement. He entered Bristol on a rainy October day, 1656, being led by his adorers, who chanted “Holy, holy, holy!” The Parliament condemned him as a blasphemer and seducer of the people. He was to be pilloried, his tongue bored through with a hot iron, his forehead branded with the letter B and public whippings in London and Bristol, followed by indefinite imprisonment.
III—The Nayler episode and its punishment had wide and terrible consequences. Shame and derision fell over the movement in England and abroad. Members were identified with the martyr or the survivor. [Other similar signs had not met with such severe punishment, if any at all]. [The difference in treatment was due to the change in political climate. There was respect for Non-conformists when Fox was tried]. They feared plots of Fifth Monarchists who prophesied a Messiah [when they tried Nayler].
There was a difference in personalities. Fox was a father figure and his outright claim to authority was less offensive than was the image of the suffering son which Nayler projected. Perhaps more than any other factor the behavior of the hysterical & adoring women roused the fury of Nayler’s judges. After recovering in mind during his nearly 3 years in prison, Nayler did all in his power for reconciliation. The breach was outwardly healed thanks to Dewsbury in 1660. Nayler spent his final months traveling, preaching, writing, turning scoffing into deep respect. His dying words were: “There is a spirit which I feel that delights to do no evil.”
After the death of Hubberthorne, Farnsworth, and Dewsbury, Nayler’s name became buried in hard silence. [Some would not mention him by name]. Fox did not realize that in condemning Nayler he also condemned a blind spot in himself. Now fear of a too immediate obedience to the Voice marred the movement, and was destined to reveal its presence in future relationships.
IV—From this conflict Fox emerged as the unquestioned leader of the Quaker movement. I now clearly see that Nayler’s approach to community was still of the medieval or feudal type. Where Fox revealed in his sense of his own election more urge for power than need for tenderness, Nayler shunned power and longed for affection. The need for organized action tend to evoke power, which found its source in George Fox.
Five years later the Quaker movement faced a 2nd challenge: the Perrot conflict. John Perrot went to Italy in 1657 to the convert the Pope. To the dried up meetings [back in England], his emotional fervor gave real refreshment. Many had been cast into prison [for not removing their hat]. To have meaning, the Quaker refusal to bow or take off the hat clearly requires that there be a power before whom one does bow and take off the hat. To many this hat question seemed rather futile, but to Fox it was all important, and he reproved Perrot at length.
The burden of Nayler must have weighed on Fox, though he says little of the Nayler story as affecting him individually. Loyalty to Fox had grown stronger than the sense of fellowship; but Perrot, too had many friends who dearly loved him. This second conflict was subdued on much the same lines as the first. Fox saw the very possible dissolution of the Quaker movement, and he judged harshly, forcing the rejection of Perrot, [and causing a self-imposed exile of Perrot to Barbadoes in 1662].
V—The Nayler and Perrot conflicts had made clear the hazards of unchecked inspiration. During George Fox’s 3 years of imprisonment in Lancaster and Scarborough Castles, the trend moved in the direction of corporate authority. The Epistle of 1666 set the authority of the meeting as a whole over the attitudes of individual members. George Fox came out of Scarborough in September 1666 to discover a solution of another kind. He wrote: “And ye Lord opened to me and lett me see what I must doe: and howe I must order and establish ye men and women’s monthly and quarterly meetings. . . every man and woman that be heires of ye gospel they are heires of this authority.” But authority could only be exercised by those trained for such service.
The Quaker [“meeting for worship with attention to business”] was an extraordinarily successful answer to a complex problem. Spiritual concern and responsible citizenship go hand-in-hand, and debate alternates with silence. To us is it democracy, to Fox it was the gospel order revealed again. The gospel order gave him the fresh gladness of the early days. Because of the scars left in the Quaker body after Fox’s summary judging in the Nayler and Perrot disputes, conflicts which were subdued rather than resolved, his ordering of the meetings was interpreted as if it were the final step in dictatorship.
VI—The ordering was an act of renunciation. Fox dethroned himself from a leadership that was becoming increasingly stabilized. The genius of Fox defined in action, not in analyzing, what had already existed as a Quaker democracy. To reach this insight he had to pass through years of darkness. He never became conscious of the real content of the Nayler conflict. Fox, who was “in love of God to all that persecuted me,” was blind when it came to his old yokefellow. Is it too bold to conjecture that Fox’s sacrifice of power was his unconscious, unspoken but practical atonement for things past—mute in the realm of words, very real in demonstrative action? He acts as one who has slowly but surely digested his own sins and mistakes and their teaching. When a man’s excellence is taken for granted, it is not easy to conquer the superman in him, especially in a person of mature age with an overwhelming religious experience in his youth.
Fox is the founder, not of Quakerism as a spiritual movement, but of the group structure through which that movement was able to survive. In organizational form Fox stated finally what had come into life as a fellowship 20 years before; it could not be quite the same. In discovering a balance between the claims of the individual and the wisdom of the group, sparked by a strange synthesis of power and sacrifice, the great survivor rescued the Quaker fellowship and bequeathed it to the future. Not the founder of a creed, he provided an organization where it would be possible for living individuals to be their creed.
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206. Margaret Fell speaking (by Hugh Barbour; 1976)
[About George Fox’s testimony]: I saw it was the Truth, & I could not deny it . . . And it was opened to me so clear, that I had never a little in my heart against it. Margaret Fell
I: Introduction—Margaret Fell’s writings, like her acts & words in her lifetime, were graceful but forth-right, with strong emotion yet sensitive to others’ feelings. She was born Margaret Askew in 1614. Her husband as of 1632, Judge Thomas Fell, inherited Swarthmoor Hall, the manor house for the market town of Ulverston. Margaret Fell administered the farms in his absence and after his death in 1658. She and her daughters managed things with unquestioned independence, often traveling alone on horseback rather than coach.
As a Quaker, Margaret Fell faced 3 long imprisonments & the seizure of her livestock & funds. Charge over Swarthmore including supporting the parish church & its visiting ministers. [From the 40s to the early 60s], parish churches became increasingly autonomous. It was Margaret Fell’s responsibility to give lodging to George Fox in June 1652. Thomas Fell trusted his wife’s faith & judgment enough to allow his home to become the base for a regional religious revival. Despite a rapturous letter from the whole household after Fox’s first visit, there is little evidence about the personal relationship between Fox and Margaret Fell until long after Judge Fell’s death. Margaret Fell’s roles in the organization of Quakerism must always be read between the lines. She did travel to promote the setting up of Women’s Meetings; her daughters, as clerks, wrote guidebooks for their functioning. She made 10 trips to London, and died at Swarthmoor in 1702, at the age of 88.
II: Margaret Fell’s Own Accounts of Her Life—“I was born in the year 1614 at March-Grange in Lancashire. I was 17 or 18 when I was married to Thomas Fell of Swarthmoor, who afterwards was a Justice of the Quorum in his County, a member of Parliament in several Parliaments, and Chancellor of the Duchy Court in Westminster. He was much esteemed in his county, and valued and honored for his justice, wisdom, moderation and mercy. We lived together 26 years, in which time we had 9 children. I hoped I did well in prayers and religious exercises, but often feared I was short of the right way . . . I was inquiring and seeking about 20 years.
We hadn't so much as heard of Quakers till we heard of George Fox coming. One of George’s Friends brought him hither. When he came among us at Ulverston Steeplehouse, he opened us a book we had never read in . . . to wit the Light of Christ in our consciences . . . & declared that this was our teacher. He said: “You will say, ‘Christ saith this, & the Apostles say this’; but what canst thou say? Art thou a Child of Light? And what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God? And G.F. spoke on a great while till Judge Sawrey caused G.F. to be haled out. He spoke in the house among family & servants, & they were all generally convinced. I saw it was the Truth, & I couldn't deny it . . . And it was opened to me so clear, that I had never a little in my heart against it.
When my husband was informed that we had entertained such men as had taken us off from going to Church, he was very much concerned [& troubled]. Richard Farnsworth & other Friends persuaded him to be still & weigh things before he did anything hastily. Whilst I was sitting with him, the power of the Lord seized upon me: & he was [amazed]. George Fox [came in later], & spoke very excellently, as ever I heard him; & opened Christ & the Apostles’ practices in their day. Lampitt, the Ulverston priest spoke to Judge Fell, but got little entrance upon him. [My husband said to diverse Friends] “You may meet here, if you will.” There was a good large Meeting the 1st Day; Meetings continued [at Swarthmore] from 1652, till 1690. And he became a kind friends to the Friends, & to the practicers of the Truth on every occasion. It was in the 8th Month, 1658 that he died, leaving 1 son & 7 daughters. Priests & professors began to write against us. I was but young in the Truth, yet I had a perfect & pure Testimony of God in my heart for God & his Truth & could give my life for it.
The King and the Prisoners—And in the Year 1660, King Charles the Second came into England. There was then many hundreds of our Friends in prison in the 3 nations of England, Scotland, and Ireland. I writ and gave papers and letters to every one of the Royal Family several times. We could never get a meeting of any sort of them with our Friends; nevertheless they were very quiet. About a quarter year after their first taking Friends to prison, a General Proclamation from the King and Council was granted for setting the Quakers at Liberty.
I [returned home &] stayed about 9 months, & then was moved of the Lord to go to London again, [not knowing why]. [There was] an Act of Parliament against Quakers for refusing Oaths, & Friends Meetings at London were much troubled with soldiers pulling Friends out of Meetings & beating them. [I wrote to the Royal Family, informing them of these events]. I came home again, having spent 4 months in & about London. I & other Friends visited [Southwest England & then Northern England], back to Swarthmoor. George Fox was committed to Lancaster Castle. The same justices sent for me to Ulverston. They said to me they wouldn't tender me the Oath of Allegiance. I told them I shouldn't deny my faith & principles for anything they could do against me.
When I was indicted for denying the Oath of Allegiance, I said I would rather choose a prison for obeying God, than my liberty for obeying men. [The judges put me out of the King’s Protection], I responded, “... Yet I am not out of the Protection of the Almighty God.” When I had been a prisoner about 4 years, I was set at liberty by an order from the King & Council in 1668.
Marriage to George Fox: 1669—[After George Fox went into Ireland], and I went into Kent, Sussex and the West we met at Bristol. There, he declared his intentions of marriage: and there also was our marriage solemnized. Soon after I came home, the Sheriff of Lancashire had me prisoner to Lancaster Castle [on the old charges], where I continued a whole year. Then I was to go up to London again: for my husband was intending for America; he was full 2 years away. [Right after he came back], he was taken prisoner by one “Justice” Parker, and sent to Worcester-jail. . . [After a long and serious illness, and a long process involving the King, the Lord Chancellor, Judge North, the Attorney General, and an appearance before the King’s Bench], he was quitted. This was the last prison that he was in, being freed by the Court of King’s Bench.
He stayed some time in London, went over to Holland, Hamburg, Germany, back to Swarthmoor, through several Counties, & back to London. Meanwhile, I was fined for holding a meeting in my own house, for speaking twice at a Meeting; they seized 30 more of my livestock. In my 70th year, the Word was in me to go to King Charles & bear to him my last Testimony, on how they did abuse us to enrich themselves.
The Death of Charles II—George Whitehead & I were going to one of the Lords to speak to the King for us. But the King was ill & died 6 days later. Those persecuting Quakers promised more of the same after the King’s death. When the King’s Council heard Margaret’s letter about this, they said they could give no protection to a particular individual; [they gave a private caution to the persecutors]. I have been at London to see my dear husband & children in 1690, this being 9 times I have been at London, upon the Lord’s & the Truth’s account.
III:
Letters and Epistles—Except for one intense letter to Fox from the whole household, they were matter-of-fact; her love was expressed by acts and character more than by phrases. She received more letters than she sent: from 1653-1660 it was evidently agreed that Friends would write to Swarthmoor Hall to report their successes, needs and imprisonments. The style of formal epistles, including some phrases characteristic of Fox, were picked up by Margaret Fell and other Quaker leaders.
A Letter to Francis Howgill & James Nayler when they were Prisoners, 1653—Dear/Brother James & Francis, the Lord's prisoners, faithful & chosen, abiding faithful in God's will, & there stand; you have peace, joy, boldness. . . The Lord is doing great things for this darkness; this heathenish ministry & dark power have long reigned. The Lord keep all Friends that way in savoriness, to discern the voice of a Stranger from the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Look not at liberty, men, nor at time, but at the Lord who will be your eternal portion.
Living under the Light—All come down to the witness of God, & deal plainly with your own souls; let the judge pass sentence on you ... Beware of betraying the just & innocent in you ... Deal plainly with your-selves, & let the eternal Light search, try, [& guide you], for the good of your souls. For to this you must stand or fall. Dwell in love & unity in the pure eternal Light; there is your fellowship, there is your cleansing & washing.
An epistle to North-Country Friends for Funds [used to support preaching and those in prison]—It is ordered by the providence of the Lord, and by his power to move in the hearts of some Friends that are poor in the outward, to go for New England. You may see it just & equal that there be general help made for Friends in the North willing to offer up their bodies and their lives for the service and will of the Lord, and to answer his motion in their hearts. The God of power enlarge your hearts towards God, his work and service.
IV. Margaret Fell on Women—Later generations acclaimed Margaret Fell’s tract on Women Speaking (1666) as a pioneer manifesto for women’s liberation. Women offering Quaker witness before & during Fox’s time include Elizabeth Hooten, Joan & Margaret Killam, Barbara Pattison, Jane Holmes, Agnes Wilkinson, & Sarah Tomlinson. Margaret Fell shows women’s ability to respond & take full part in all aspects of religious life.
“Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed of by the Scriptures—It hath been objected by clergy against women speaking in Church as taken from I Corinthians 14:34,35 and I Timothy 2:11,12. When God created men in his own image . . . male and female . . . God joins them together in his own image and makes no distinctions as men do. Those that speak against the Spirit speaking in a woman, not regarding the Seed and Spirit and Power that speaks in her, such speak against Christ and his Church. Jesus owned the love and grace that appeared in women, and did not despise it. What had become of the redemption of the whole body of mankind, if they had not believed the message that the Lord Jesus sent by these women of and concerning his resurrection? And thus the Lord Jesus hath manifested himself and his power, without respect of persons; and so let all mouths be stopped that would limit him.”
V: Margaret Fell’s Other Writings—A Brief Collection of Margaret Fell’s works included 49 items & 500+ pages. She used prophets’ words to call Jews to the same Light they already knew. Margaret Fell’s 1st letter to Fox showed her religious dependence on him. She wrote her Epistle against Uniform Quaker Costume; April 1700 when she was 86. She warns: “Let us not be entangled again, in observing proscriptions in outward things, which won't profit nor cleanse the inward... This narrowness & strictness is entering in, that many can't tell what to do, or not to do; poor Friends are mangled in their minds. They say we must be all in one dress & one color. This is silly poor Gospel. It is more fit for us to be covered with God’s eternal Spirit, & clothed with his eternal Light. These silly outside imaginary practices are coming up, & practiced with great zeal, which hath often grieved my heart. Now I have set before you Life & Death, & desire you to choose Life & God & his truth.
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170. Edward Hicks: Primitive Quaker (His Religion in Relation to his Art) (by Eleanore P. Mather; 1970)
About the Author—Born a Friend, Eleanore P. Mather graduated from Westtown School & from Mt Holyoke College. She has been editor of Pendle Hill Pamphlets. Though the present pamphlet points out cultural & social evidences of Quakerism in Edward Hicks’ painting, its special emphasis is on his religion's inward aspect.
What is a Primitive Quaker?—Edward Hicks (1780-1849) is now recognized as America’s foremost primitive painter, & his Peaceable Kingdoms & other works are sought after by museums nationwide. Hicks served his Newtown meeting as preacher, minister, committee member, as well as sweeping & laying fires before meeting. He applied the term “primitive” to early Christians and to early Quakers. Wrote Hicks: “Under the influence of this blessed spirit my soul finds a sweet union with all God’s children in their devotional exercises, whether . . . Protestant. . . Roman. . . Hindoo. . . or [Native American].” Divine revelation might be a few broken words spoken by an uneducated man, woman, or child. It was the work of George Fox to organize these fervent seekers into a form of church government which might serve as a balance to the extreme individualism of the faith.
Edward Hicks Becomes a Preacher—Edward Hicks wasn’t born Quaker; he became one at 23. His parents were Tories & Episcopalians. With British defeat came impoverishment for Hicks’ father & his 3 children. Elizabeth & David Twining fostered Edward for a decade; he looked back on this time wistfully. Isaac wanted a law education for his son, but settled for apprenticeship in a coach painter’s shop. His master also ran an inn. Hicks wrote: “Licentious lewdness was much more a besetting sin, & my preservation from ruin in this way appeared a miracle, for I certainly indulged in lewd conversation.” He joined Middletown meeting in spring 1803; neither his spiritual or financial progress was smooth. “I went staggering along, still keeping my neighbors faults in the wallet’s front end, & my own behind my back.” A female Friend influenced him “to talk less pray more.”
[Hicks’ first vocal ministry] was “but a few words that I could utter, & on taking my seat, I wept almost aloud.” [He was filled with love & concern for everyone for 2 or 3 weeks afterward]. “I not only borrowed money but [also] sentiments and language; hence I passed, like too many others, for more than I was worth.” He was officially recorded a minister at Middletown in 1812. In 1815 he helped found Newtown Preparative Meeting, which was to be his lifelong meeting.
Edward Hicks was an outstanding traveling minister in the Friends missionary work that lasted well into the 2nd half of the 19th century, traveling to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Long Island, New York, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana and Canada at his own expense. He had a gift for preaching at funerals, and also used his speaking talents against the hypocritical and self-righteous, against the lukewarm and the libertine.
Like so many old-time Quakers he was a man of one message. His Noah’s Ark promises the serenity of a new and better order within. “Public Friends” experienced: primitive innocence; juvenile frivolity; acceptance of the Light after inner struggle; public testimony in meeting; adoption of plain dress, and usually a sense of social concern. He was not a concerned abolitionist or pacifist, but perhaps his art, a translation of spirit into action, took the place of the more specific social concerns of his generation.
The Preacher Becomes an Artist—Several years after his move to Newtown Edward Hicks tried farming failed miserably; he turned back to painting. It is significant that he was a craftsman before he was an artist. [The usefulness of his painting made his occupation more acceptable]. He referred to his art in an apologetic parenthesis as “being the only business he was able to follow.” Hostility to art in the early years of the republic was not confined to Quakers, or Puritans. If his neighbors disapproved of painting, at least they did not laugh at his. Alice Ford said: “His lack of opportunity [for training] is our good fortune; his well spring of genius was spirit.”
[In his painting craft, he learned to grind his own colors. He painted coaches, houses sign posts to tavern signs. He used flat colors, bold and decorative outlines, and a casual approach to proportion and perspective]. The product is what Holder Cahill has defined as “folk art.” Cahill writes: “There is no doubt that these works have technical deficiencies from the academic and naturalistic point of view. The folk artist tried to set down not so much what they saw as what they knew and felt.”
His work is startlingly original, though he used time-worn themes, and borrowed other people’s figures. With all his originality he still reveals the practical tradition of a craft rather than the academic tradition of formal art. [The Residence of David Twining (1787)] reflects the world of an American Quaker, with something in the mood and technique suggesting a more remote age; there is even a touch of the Holy Family about it all.
The Folk Artist and His Community—When Edward Hicks joined the Society of Friends he acquired not only a religion but a community. He cherished this adopted world, but he did not always get along with it; Edward was not a peaceable Quaker. He berated them about their un-Quakerly behavior, higher education, and even abolition as a political cause of factions and distraction from the inward life. He even sharply criticized Lucretia Mott. [Even] he wrote: “I certainly have no merit, and am really astonished that such a poor creature as I have always been, should ever have attained to such a standing in Society, and had so many good friends.” With his immediate family he was warm and tender.
Though he was obstinate, prejudiced, and contentious his faith was unswerving, and he became the voice of Bucks County Quakerism. His coaches and sleighs sped over its thoroughfares; his signposts directed travelers on their way; his tavern signs offered them refreshment; his painted furniture and easel pictures adorned their parlors. Friends and non-Friends alike flocked to hear his preaching. Edward Hicks might be estranged from his own time, but not from his own people. He had his family, his church, his village, and his county, all interwoven to form a solid social fabric which the modern [city-dweller] can scarcely comprehend.
The Kingdom of Conflict—Using Isaiah 11:6-9 as a text, Edward Hicks painted numerous sermons on the peaceable kingdom they describe. There are at least 3 ways in which these paintings relate to the religious beliefs of the artist: traditional, organizational, and inward. The traditional Quaker ideal of peace between nations was probably a strong fact in his original choice of the subject. Penn’s treaty with the Indians, borrowed from an earlier Quaker artist appears in most of the Kingdoms. A strong motivation for some of the Kingdoms was organizational, in particular the conflict that led to the great Separation of 1827.
Near the end of the 18th century, Philadelphia meetings tended to lay increasing stress on the outward atonement of the historical Christ and on the Scriptures. Opposing this trend was Elias Hicks, Edward’s cousin. His emphasis on Quakerism’s mystical side caused concern to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting elders. Country Friends embraced Elias, & because Edward considered the Orthodox trend as encroaching on primitive Quakerism, and because he was a great admirer of Elias, it was inevitable that he should be drawn into the controversy.
The Orthodox movement was led by a clerk and a former clerk of the Yearly Meeting. They tried to write a creed, and take rights away from the monthly meetings; it was a conflict between ministers and elders, between inspiration and authority. Orthodoxy prevailed, and Elias was barred from preaching in the Philadelphia area. The followers of Hicks withdrew. Both sides believed they were defending the true faith.
Around 1820 he produced his first Peaceable Kingdom. [In the left background was a representation of Penn’s treaty with the Indians. In the right foreground was a group] consisting of a child with its arm around a lion’s neck, a steer, lamb & wolf, leopard & kid. As the decade progressed Hicks painted many variants of this simple scene. The Separation of 1827 change the background of the painting from Penn to a pyramid of Quakers, [Fox, Penn, and Barclay at the top, George Washington and Elias Hicks at the bottom] bearing a banner.
In an early type of Peaceable Kingdom (1820), Hicks borrowed the composition from Richard Westall. To it he added Penn’s treaty with the Indians; some of them have a lettered border with a paraphrase of the verses. The Separation of 1827 created Hicksites and Orthodox, and changed the composition of the Peaceable Kingdoms. The animals turn sullen & defiant. Penn’s treaty gave way to a pyramid of “Quakers Bearing Banners,” representing the Hicksites. George Washington & Elias Hicks, cousin to Edward stands in the forefront. Linking the substantial cloud of witnesses to the Light of Christ with a banner, its inscription associated with the birth of the historical Christ, is surely in answer to the Orthodox charge of heresy. Edward said of Jonathan Evans that he was “too much like myself, malignant and bitter toward his enemies. I consider him as honest as Saul of Tarsus. When Jesus Christ was revealed in him, Jonathan Evans became a changed man.”
The Inward Kingdom—In likening his old opponent Jonathan Evans, to the lion and the ox, Edward Hicks touched on the third and most significant aspect of the Peaceable Kingdom, the inward one. As the years went on, his paintings became spiritual landscapes peopled with vices and virtues of mankind in animal form. The soul he was most interested in saving was his own. Taken in toto the Kingdom series is a record of his spiritual growth, his recurrent struggles and the search for harmony in reconciliation with himself. He writes: “The lamb, the kid, the cow, and the ox are emblems of good men and women, while the wolf, leopard, bear, and lion are figures of the wicked.” The virtuous kid tends to decrease in size as his brilliant contrast, the sanguine leopard, increases.
The leopard starts out with only head and paws in the Westall composition. In the Kingdom with Quakers bearing Banners he stretches defiantly at full length. He always retains some element of interest, if only with his eyes. There is a peculiar identification of the artist with these great golden cats. [Their tails seems to take the place of] the serpent, which Hicks does not feature. Hicks puts his focus on the yoking of the lion and the fatling together by the little child, until the lion and the leopard captured the composition. To Hicks: “The leopard is the most subtle, cruel, restless creature, and at the same time the most beautiful of all the carnivorous animal of cat kind . . . men and women of this class in the sinful state, are not to be depended upon.” Hicks shared the Quaker belief that the leopard’s beauty belonged in the jungle, and the hope that it stayed there. For poor Edward the artist the leopard would not stay in the jungle. The leopard was a part of him, and how significant a part is suggested by the dominance and variety of its position in the paintings.
The lion evolves from looking like a patient dog submitting to caresses of an importunate child. In the Separation's Kingdoms, his eyes harden & glitter & he shows a choleric humor. In the middle period Kingdoms the lion’s eyes become fearful & sorrowful. In a Middle Period Kingdom painting (1830-40), Penn & his Indians return. The lion sits next to the ox. With the middle period Kingdoms Hicks introduced all the prophecy's figures, & creates a disturbed energy. We have left the world of outer conflict & have entered the artist's troubled soul. Beside the lion stands his great alter ego, the ox, perhaps representing the grave, kindly elder. The ox is the only “good” animal to achieve any prominence in these compositions. A portrait of Hicks at his easel shows an alert, rugged, pugnacious face, spectacles pushed back on forehead, brush & palette in hand, a Bible open beside him.
The Late Kingdom paintings (1844) show certain animals reaching their zenith, particularly the leopard and the ox. The little child is trying to yoke the young lion, the calf, and the fatling together with a tasseled cord. There is a shifting, as if someone had entered or left the group. The lion has become a mere observer. The leopard’s eyes are still piercing us with a question—or an answer. We are not quite sure.
Edward Hicks died on August 23, 1849. The last Kingdom was painted for his favorite daughter, Elizabeth. The trees in the background shimmer in a golden autumnal twilight. The wolf rises and appears to be listening. The little child has finally yoked the young lion with the calf and the fatling, and now marches them off, leaving the leopard to flow across the foreground like a skein of silk. Elizabeth encouraged him writing: “I have a firm faith thy dedication to the candle of Truth will not and cannot be lost. I believe that thou hast been an instrument to sow seed that has taken root in different parts of the vineyard, and will bear a rich harvest . . .”
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238. Lawrie Tatum, Indian Agent (1822-1900): Quaker Values & Hard Choices (by Robert Hixson; 1981)
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18TH CENTURY
96. John Woolman and the 20th century (by Reginald Reynolds; 1958)
About the Author—Reginald Reynolds is an English Friend whose public life began in 1930. He was employed by Mahatma Gandhi as his emissary to the viceroy. Since then he has worked for colonial liberation and better race relations. In 1953 he made an overland “pilgrimage in search of hope” from Cairo to Cape Town.
FOREWORD—This pamphlet is from unscripted address at Mount Holly, New Jersey, September 1956. I have tried to preserve the original form rather than [use] “literary” English. I hope there is a spontaneity here [unlike that] of a prepared script. I have tried to adhere to the word (not necessarily the precise words) given to me on that occasion. I stayed at the house devoted to the memory of John Woolman. Reading through a record of this talk, I am struck by the extent to which my experiences in America [American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)-sponsored work camps, seminar, institutes] provide so many interpretations of the Woolman Way. Revolutionary change comes when you persuade people to examine their own beliefs with critical integrity.
John Woolman’s dangerous journey to meet Papunahung and tribe came to mind during the interracial seminar. [The swift change of the students could happen only where some catalyst is used to stimulate a searching heart. [I did not add to the speech] because I do not want to repeat what I wrote in The Wisdom of John Woolman and because I place more emphasis on the “catalytic” function and less on the didactic, [in which prophets can be quoted with an absurd dulling of intelligence].
Quakerism began as a protest against a dead letter religion. Fox invites you to put aside all your second-hand knowledge and give the Holy Spirit a chance to speak. Even with a man like Woolman, care must be taken to not credit him with uniform verbal inspiration. [When the devil fails to destroy a great man’s virtue, he sends disciples as a last resort]. [Quotes are of no use unless the quoter has drunk from the same spring that was Woolman’s inspiration]. I would rather ask awkward questions myself than provide slick answers. “Blessed are the confused, for they may see the light. And beware of those with all the answers, for they are wrong.” I seek to use John Woolman here as an effective catalyst.
[John Woolman’s Relevance]—[John Woolman used Habakkuk 3:17-18, & I am quite certain that Romans 8: 38-39 spoke to John Woolman’s condition]. [It is] perhaps the greatest privilege I could hope for, being asked to this place at this time to talk of the man who means so much to me. I want to begin with a child's mind. [I had to ask 2 children that I loved more than the others to stay behind on a boat trip. When I told their mother “I gave them the privilege of not going,” she said, “You can only measure the privilege by the great desire that they had to go.” Those children had learned or were learning that the reward for goodness is not a material reward.
John Woolman said of children: “Natural affection needs a careful examination. Operating upon us in a soft manner, it kindles desires of love & tenderness, & there is danger of taking it for something higher.” Natural affection appears to be a branch of self-love, good in us with proper limitation, but otherwise is productive of evil, by exciting desires to promote some by means prejudicial to others.” [If we are] “contriving for the prosperity of our children, let us then lay the foundation deep, & by our constant uniform regard to an inward piety & virtue let them see that we really value it.”
In the Prodigal son story, the father trusted the elder brother would understand his attitude to the younger, that his greatest trust & confidence in the elder was that his reward was to be unrewarded. In John Woolman’s case, an “ancient man of good esteem & owning slaves came to write his will. I asked him how he proposed to dispose of them. He told me & I said, ‘I cannot write thy will without breaking up my peace.” An all-white work camp had to decide whether to use segregated facilities; they decided not to. One girl said: “We had to decide what was the practical thing: to spend 4 days in comfort or to live at peace with ourselves afterwards. She had seen that it isn't “practical” to do a thing if it leaves behind an uneasy conscience. If we look into the “practical” question, it will resolve itself into the question: What can you do & still be at peace with yourself?
[John Woolman and Slavery]—John Woolman said: “Men taking on the government [& command] of others, may intend to govern reasonably & to make their subjects more happy than they would be otherwise … Where frail men assume such command, it tends to vitiate their minds & to make them unfit of government [of others].” [& he said]: “The love of ease & gain are the motives in general of keeping slaves; men are wont to take hold of weak arguments [from the Bible] to support a cause which is unreasonable.” [I think of both of these quotes] in relation to the problem of race & white domination in colonial imperialism. [I have noticed that] people, in spite of their good intentions are corrupted by the very power which they exercise, & they use weak arguments to maintain an unreasonable cause.
I suggest you will find 4 stages which follow the original crude & quite irrational attitude to slavery: “the slave has a soul,” so we must teach the gospel to the slave; uneasiness about the slave trade—not slavery itself; “the institution of slavery must end”; we owe something to these people beyond freedom (i.e. rehabilitation). The attitude of Christians to colonialism is, in my view, passing through 4 very similar processes: the heathen has a soul”; no new colonizing; abolition of colonialism; there is a little bit of rehabilitation going on.
Where do we as Quakers, fit into such programs? We should remember the some very fine men were disowned by the Society of Friends before Woolman’s time for advocating slavery’s abolition too vigorously. Within about 20 years of my life, the whole attitude of the Society of Friends in England change from a mixture of hostility and apathy with regard to India and Gandhi. The world did not accept all his teachings. The people learned to tolerate and respect and admire qualities which they find lacking in themselves. In our time we see that the pioneer is still able, by his devoted service, to bring attention to things and to change the minds of men and women, even though he may stand at times almost alone or apparently alone.
Horace Alexander said to me: “You read your Quaker history all wrong. The Society never was what you think it was. It was something from which very fine men and women sprang who did very fine work. But from John Woolman to Elizabeth Fry and since, you will find nearly always that they had to proceed almost alone, with very little backing from Friends and sometimes none. It was only later that we accepted them and took credit for what they had done.” The dead weight of the Society lags behind the inspired individual, as all societies do. I have heard fundamental wisdom uttered in Meetings for Worship. If even 1/10 of that wisdom were applied in the lives of Friends not only the Society but the whole world might be very different today.
After a teenage institute, I was asked to sum up our Iowa experience. When I finished, instead of applauding, someone sang “Jacob’s Ladder,” which asked the question: If you love Him, why not serve Him? [I knew I was with a] fellowship of people, [black and white], who had learned that the love of God is inseparable from the service of God. There are always people who can tell us a dozen reasons why we mustn't move too fast. The only patience I understand is [Paul’s patience] to “run with patience the race that is set before us, to run [a long distance], knowing that it is going to take time; but not lagging.
John Woolman had an imaginative capacity which most of us had yet to learn. He said: “If we bring this matter home & ‘put our soul in their souls’ stead; if we consider ourselves & our children as exposed to the hardships which these people lie under … had we none to plead our cause, nor any hope of relief from man, how would our cries ascend to the God of spirits who judges the world & in who is a refuge for the oppressed.”
[Besides apartheid in South Africa there is counter-apartheid,] blacks saying “If you don’t want us, we don’t want you.” A liberal white woman said: “Twice in my life I have known what it is to be on the wrong side of the color bar.” The division is horizontal not vertical; you are above that division or below it [i.e. the wrong side]. A woman missionary was overwhelmed by racial intolerance, with so much humiliation, so much degradation [throughout the culture]. The old missionary said: “You needn’t worry while it hurts, my dear. It is when it STOPS hurting that you can begin to worry.” I know that I only retain my sensitivity if I continued to exercise my imagination & to put my soul in their souls’ stead. In human relationships sensitivity is God’s essential gift.
[Spreading the Idea]—I have always described Woolman’s method as the personal approach to the social problem. We have almost lost touch with the primitive and essential method of spreading great ideas, namely to pass the idea along to the person is next in your life. The one essential thing about the spreading of ideas in the great historic tradition is that they spread by their own dynamic force, and they spread by geometric progression. People who put out pamphlets haven’t begun to understand that all your literature is secondary to what you are and what you do. It is only when you’ve got a person interested by other means that a pamphlet or peace movement can be made worthwhile. It was what John Woolman was that made people read his writings.
What Gandhi wrote & what he said could have been unimportant, but for what Gandhi was & what he did. The smallest spiritual unit is the human soul. It is as dynamic & explosive as the atom, & it can have chain reactions. The warlike Muslim Pathans of the Indian Northwest Frontier demonstrated in support of Gandhi & the Congress. The Government had 2 shocks, [because Pathans were supposed to be violent & against all Hindus]. They received another shock when some of the Hindu troops they routinely used against Muslims refused to fire.
[In speaking of the Church], Christianity's apparent “success” under Constantine the Great was perhaps the most fatal thing that ever happened to the Church. Its apparent “failures,” from the cross onward, proved to be its strength. Only by seeking & following God’s guidance can we make right ethical decisions, which will often seem foolish to many people. [The incident with the Pathan demonstrators visited me again, in the person of the British officer who gave the order to fire & wrote me a letter 22 years after the fact about his conversion experience after his platoon’s refusal to fire]. A teenager spoke out of his own experience about the meaning of love. He said: “Love is not soft like water; it is hard like a rock, on which the waves of hatred beat in vain.”
[Conclusion]—John Woolman said: “Among the [drafting] officers are men of understanding, who when they have uprighthearted men to deal with, to put them to trouble on account of scruples of conscience is a painful task and likely to be avoided as much as may be easily. But where men profess to be meek and heavenly-minded and cannot join in wars, and yet, by their spirit and conduct in common life, manifest a contrary disposition, their difficulties are great at such a time.”
In our duty to our neighbor, how far does our Christianity stretch? [I met a missionary who told me frankly]: “I don’t want to be associated with them too closely myself.” [I later realized that I probably felt the same way about prejudiced white people who need Christ brought to them]. [A teenage girl wanted to dance with a Negro boy, but her father forbade her to do so; she worried about hurting the boy]. Her headmaster said: “Charlie is often hurt, [and will be] all through his life. Don’t hurt him any more than you can help. You have got to refuse in language that makes it quite clear that you would have accepted it, but that your father won’t let you. So long as you feel the hurt with him, that is the thing that matters.”
Later, I came to see that the time was coming when it was not only Charlie who was going to be hurt; Daddy was going to be hurt. This business of trying to feel with and for people when they hold ideas entirely repulsive to yours is something that Woolman understood. [The director of an interracial group in the South reported to me]: “Those fiery crosses are a soul-searing experience. How does one get at the mind which makes this appalling distortion of the symbol of the cross?” I feel that only by seeking the same sources that Woolman sought can we hope to find the answer to it.
John Woolman said: “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me. And the life I now live in the flesh is by the faith in the Son of God, who loved and gave himself for me. Then the mystery was opened, and I perceived that there was joy in heaven over a sinner who had repented; and that that language John Woolman is dead, meant no more than the death of my own will.”
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187. The Divine Witness of John Woolman (by Phillips P. Moulton; 1973)
About the Author—Reginald Reynolds is an English Friend whose public life began in 1930. He was employed by Mahatma Gandhi as his emissary to the viceroy. Since then he has worked for colonial liberation and better race relations. In 1953 he made an overland “pilgrimage in search of hope” from Cairo to Cape Town.
FOREWORD—This pamphlet is from unscripted address at Mount Holly, New Jersey, September 1956. I have tried to preserve the original form rather than [use] “literary” English. I hope there is a spontaneity here [unlike that] of a prepared script. I have tried to adhere to the word (not necessarily the precise words) given to me on that occasion. I stayed at the house devoted to the memory of John Woolman. Reading through a record of this talk, I am struck by the extent to which my experiences in America [American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)-sponsored work camps, seminar, institutes] provide so many interpretations of the Woolman Way. Revolutionary change comes when you persuade people to examine their own beliefs with critical integrity.
John Woolman’s dangerous journey to meet Papunahung and tribe came to mind during the interracial seminar. [The swift change of the students could happen only where some catalyst is used to stimulate a searching heart. [I did not add to the speech] because I do not want to repeat what I wrote in The Wisdom of John Woolman and because I place more emphasis on the “catalytic” function and less on the didactic, [in which prophets can be quoted with an absurd dulling of intelligence].
Quakerism began as a protest against a dead letter religion. Fox invites you to put aside all your second-hand knowledge and give the Holy Spirit a chance to speak. Even with a man like Woolman, care must be taken to not credit him with uniform verbal inspiration. [When the devil fails to destroy a great man’s virtue, he sends disciples as a last resort]. [Quotes are of no use unless the quoter has drunk from the same spring that was Woolman’s inspiration]. I would rather ask awkward questions myself than provide slick answers. “Blessed are the confused, for they may see the light. And beware of those with all the answers, for they are wrong.” I seek to use John Woolman here as an effective catalyst.
[John Woolman’s Relevance]—[John Woolman used Habakkuk 3:17-18, & I am quite certain that Romans 8: 38-39 spoke to John Woolman’s condition]. [It is] perhaps the greatest privilege I could hope for, being asked to this place at this time to talk of the man who means so much to me. I want to begin with a child's mind. [I had to ask 2 children that I loved more than the others to stay behind on a boat trip. When I told their mother “I gave them the privilege of not going,” she said, “You can only measure the privilege by the great desire that they had to go.” Those children had learned or were learning that the reward for goodness is not a material reward.
John Woolman said of children: “Natural affection needs a careful examination. Operating upon us in a soft manner, it kindles desires of love & tenderness, & there is danger of taking it for something higher.” Natural affection appears to be a branch of self-love, good in us with proper limitation, but otherwise is productive of evil, by exciting desires to promote some by means prejudicial to others.” [If we are] “contriving for the prosperity of our children, let us then lay the foundation deep, & by our constant uniform regard to an inward piety & virtue let them see that we really value it.”
In the Prodigal son story, the father trusted the elder brother would understand his attitude to the younger, that his greatest trust & confidence in the elder was that his reward was to be unrewarded. In John Woolman’s case, an “ancient man of good esteem & owning slaves came to write his will. I asked him how he proposed to dispose of them. He told me & I said, ‘I cannot write thy will without breaking up my peace.” An all-white work camp had to decide whether to use segregated facilities; they decided not to. One girl said: “We had to decide what was the practical thing: to spend 4 days in comfort or to live at peace with ourselves afterwards. She had seen that it isn't “practical” to do a thing if it leaves behind an uneasy conscience. If we look into the “practical” question, it will resolve itself into the question: What can you do & still be at peace with yourself?
[John Woolman and Slavery]—John Woolman said: “Men taking on the government [& command] of others, may intend to govern reasonably & to make their subjects more happy than they would be otherwise … Where frail men assume such command, it tends to vitiate their minds & to make them unfit of government [of others].” [& he said]: “The love of ease & gain are the motives in general of keeping slaves; men are wont to take hold of weak arguments [from the Bible] to support a cause which is unreasonable.” [I think of both of these quotes] in relation to the problem of race & white domination in colonial imperialism. [I have noticed that] people, in spite of their good intentions are corrupted by the very power which they exercise, & they use weak arguments to maintain an unreasonable cause.
I suggest you will find 4 stages which follow the original crude & quite irrational attitude to slavery: “the slave has a soul,” so we must teach the gospel to the slave; uneasiness about the slave trade—not slavery itself; “the institution of slavery must end”; we owe something to these people beyond freedom (i.e. rehabilitation). The attitude of Christians to colonialism is, in my view, passing through 4 very similar processes: the heathen has a soul”; no new colonizing; abolition of colonialism; there is a little bit of rehabilitation going on.
Where do we as Quakers, fit into such programs? We should remember the some very fine men were disowned by the Society of Friends before Woolman’s time for advocating slavery’s abolition too vigorously. Within about 20 years of my life, the whole attitude of the Society of Friends in England change from a mixture of hostility and apathy with regard to India and Gandhi. The world did not accept all his teachings. The people learned to tolerate and respect and admire qualities which they find lacking in themselves. In our time we see that the pioneer is still able, by his devoted service, to bring attention to things and to change the minds of men and women, even though he may stand at times almost alone or apparently alone.
Horace Alexander said to me: “You read your Quaker history all wrong. The Society never was what you think it was. It was something from which very fine men and women sprang who did very fine work. But from John Woolman to Elizabeth Fry and since, you will find nearly always that they had to proceed almost alone, with very little backing from Friends and sometimes none. It was only later that we accepted them and took credit for what they had done.” The dead weight of the Society lags behind the inspired individual, as all societies do. I have heard fundamental wisdom uttered in Meetings for Worship. If even 1/10 of that wisdom were applied in the lives of Friends not only the Society but the whole world might be very different today.
After a teenage institute, I was asked to sum up our Iowa experience. When I finished, instead of applauding, someone sang “Jacob’s Ladder,” which asked the question: If you love Him, why not serve Him? [I knew I was with a] fellowship of people, [black and white], who had learned that the love of God is inseparable from the service of God. There are always people who can tell us a dozen reasons why we mustn't move too fast. The only patience I understand is [Paul’s patience] to “run with patience the race that is set before us, to run [a long distance], knowing that it is going to take time; but not lagging.
John Woolman had an imaginative capacity which most of us had yet to learn. He said: “If we bring this matter home & ‘put our soul in their souls’ stead; if we consider ourselves & our children as exposed to the hardships which these people lie under … had we none to plead our cause, nor any hope of relief from man, how would our cries ascend to the God of spirits who judges the world & in who is a refuge for the oppressed.”
[Besides apartheid in South Africa there is counter-apartheid,] blacks saying “If you don’t want us, we don’t want you.” A liberal white woman said: “Twice in my life I have known what it is to be on the wrong side of the color bar.” The division is horizontal not vertical; you are above that division or below it [i.e. the wrong side]. A woman missionary was overwhelmed by racial intolerance, with so much humiliation, so much degradation [throughout the culture]. The old missionary said: “You needn’t worry while it hurts, my dear. It is when it STOPS hurting that you can begin to worry.” I know that I only retain my sensitivity if I continued to exercise my imagination & to put my soul in their souls’ stead. In human relationships sensitivity is God’s essential gift.
[Spreading the Idea]—I have always described Woolman’s method as the personal approach to the social problem. We have almost lost touch with the primitive and essential method of spreading great ideas, namely to pass the idea along to the person is next in your life. The one essential thing about the spreading of ideas in the great historic tradition is that they spread by their own dynamic force, and they spread by geometric progression. People who put out pamphlets haven’t begun to understand that all your literature is secondary to what you are and what you do. It is only when you’ve got a person interested by other means that a pamphlet or peace movement can be made worthwhile. It was what John Woolman was that made people read his writings.
What Gandhi wrote & what he said could have been unimportant, but for what Gandhi was & what he did. The smallest spiritual unit is the human soul. It is as dynamic & explosive as the atom, & it can have chain reactions. The warlike Muslim Pathans of the Indian Northwest Frontier demonstrated in support of Gandhi & the Congress. The Government had 2 shocks, [because Pathans were supposed to be violent & against all Hindus]. They received another shock when some of the Hindu troops they routinely used against Muslims refused to fire.
[In speaking of the Church], Christianity's apparent “success” under Constantine the Great was perhaps the most fatal thing that ever happened to the Church. Its apparent “failures,” from the cross onward, proved to be its strength. Only by seeking & following God’s guidance can we make right ethical decisions, which will often seem foolish to many people. [The incident with the Pathan demonstrators visited me again, in the person of the British officer who gave the order to fire & wrote me a letter 22 years after the fact about his conversion experience after his platoon’s refusal to fire]. A teenager spoke out of his own experience about the meaning of love. He said: “Love is not soft like water; it is hard like a rock, on which the waves of hatred beat in vain.”
[Conclusion]—John Woolman said: “Among the [drafting] officers are men of understanding, who when they have uprighthearted men to deal with, to put them to trouble on account of scruples of conscience is a painful task and likely to be avoided as much as may be easily. But where men profess to be meek and heavenly-minded and cannot join in wars, and yet, by their spirit and conduct in common life, manifest a contrary disposition, their difficulties are great at such a time.”
In our duty to our neighbor, how far does our Christianity stretch? [I met a missionary who told me frankly]: “I don’t want to be associated with them too closely myself.” [I later realized that I probably felt the same way about prejudiced white people who need Christ brought to them]. [A teenage girl wanted to dance with a Negro boy, but her father forbade her to do so; she worried about hurting the boy]. Her headmaster said: “Charlie is often hurt, [and will be] all through his life. Don’t hurt him any more than you can help. You have got to refuse in language that makes it quite clear that you would have accepted it, but that your father won’t let you. So long as you feel the hurt with him, that is the thing that matters.”
Later, I came to see that the time was coming when it was not only Charlie who was going to be hurt; Daddy was going to be hurt. This business of trying to feel with and for people when they hold ideas entirely repulsive to yours is something that Woolman understood. [The director of an interracial group in the South reported to me]: “Those fiery crosses are a soul-searing experience. How does one get at the mind which makes this appalling distortion of the symbol of the cross?” I feel that only by seeking the same sources that Woolman sought can we hope to find the answer to it.
John Woolman said: “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me. And the life I now live in the flesh is by the faith in the Son of God, who loved and gave himself for me. Then the mystery was opened, and I perceived that there was joy in heaven over a sinner who had repented; and that that language John Woolman is dead, meant no more than the death of my own will.”
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187. The Divine Witness of John Woolman (by Phillips P. Moulton; 1973)
About the Author—Phillips Moulton’s scholarly work on Woolman exemplifies his vocation to apply intellectual endeavors to the service of religion. [He taught at 2 seminaries, and] his special interest is ethics. The author has long been a member of the Wider Quaker Fellowship. The essay is one result of an abiding interest in Woolman; he edited The Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman.
I & II—John Woolman deserves to be ranked among the great spiritual leaders of humankind. He is comparable to Albert Schweitzer and Mahatma Gandhi. Woolman lived in colonial New Jersey (1720-1772). He married and had 2 children. He was a: orchard grower; merchant, tailor, surveyor, scrivener and conveyancer, teacher, and author. He was the most notable of the many Quaker ministers in America and England.
Woolman’s Journal is a literary classic, the perennial source of inspiration & ammunition to those [working for] social change. [His opposition to slavery was expressed in belief that] we should love our neighbors as our-selves & guarantee “civil & religious liberties” for all. “[Older slaves’] misery hath felt to me like the misery of my parents.” Slaveholders were also objects of Woolman’s solicitude, caught in a system they didn’t create & from which they also suffered. He believed that treating others as slaves dimmed the owners’ vision & depraved the mind. Their children’s hearts [were becoming] accustomed to this way of life; they were likewise affected.
Woolman’s concern with the evils of slavery was part of his larger desire that all should do the will of God in every aspect of life. “How are the sufferings our Blessed Redeemer set at nought … through the unrighteous proceedings of his professed followers!” People did not have sufficient wisdom and goodness to warrant being entrusted with absolute power over others.
“Free men whose minds were properly on their business found a satisfaction in improving, cultivating, & providing for their families. Negroes, labouring to support others who claim them as their property, & expecting nothing but slavery … hadn’t the like inducement.” “While we manifest by our conduct that our views in purchasing them are to advance ourselves, while our buying captives taken in war [provides incentive] to push on that war & increase desolations amongst them, to say that they live unhappy in Africa is far from being an argument in our favor.” “I was troubled to perceive the darkness of their imaginations, & … said: “The love of ease & gain are the motives in general of keeping slaves, & men are wont to [use] weak arguments [from Scripture] to support a cause which is unreasonable.” Woolman traced slavery to luxurious living, whereby God’s intended harmony among men and between man and nature was seriously disturbed. It was Woolman’s clear and steady voice that woke the conscience of the Quakers and through them of the Western world to this moral evil.
The ethics of participation in war also claimed much of Woolman’s attention. The responses to the draft of that time were strikingly similar to those made during the US Vietnam war, [with some “tarrying abroad,” some serving, and some with “a real tender scruple in their minds against joining in wars.” Woolman’s most distinctive contribution to the Friends’ peace testimony was refusing to pay war taxes. “I all along believed that there were some upright-hearted men who paid such taxes, but could not see that example was a sufficient reason for me to do so.” It became evident to him that paying war taxes was contrary to friends’ pacifist principles.
Disturbed about the harmful effects of moral compromise, Woolman realized that the right example could be powerful influence for good. “When [we] in the spirit of meekness suffer distress to be made on our goods rather than to pay actively, this joined with an upright uniform life may tend to put man athinking about their own conduct.” In PA, a petition was presented to the Assembly by Friends asking that no law might be passed to enjoin the payment of money “for such uses as a peaceable people could not pay for conscience’s sake.”
A 3rd major area of concern for Woolman, closely related to the issues of slavery and war had to do with economics. “[God] hath provided that so much labor shall be necessary for men’s support in this world as would, being rightly divided, be a suitable employment of their time … we cannot … grasp after wealth in a way contrary to [God’s] wisdom without having a connection with some degree of oppression.” The victims of oppression exploited others in turn, as when settlers, driven to the wilderness by high rents, overcharged the Indians for rum and underpaid them for furs, resulting in bitterness and the seeds of war.
Woolman always identified himself with oppressed. In a vision he saw the world’s misery, & he saw “People getting silver to set off their tables … I should take heed how I fed myself from out of silver vessels.” “There was a care in my mind so to pass my time as to things outward that nothing might hinder me from the most steady attention to the True Shepherd’s voice.” He sought to live on the lowest economic level consonant with fulfilling the life & mission to which he was called by God. It freed him “to taste & relish not only those blessings which are spiritual, but also feel a sweetness & satisfaction in the right use of the good gifts of God in the visible creation.” Woolman’s teachings imply social criticism of an economic system that intensifies the profit motive. That motive often operates to disrupt divinely ordained harmony. [Many who exploit others in this system] are not hideous monsters, but are caught up in a system which exalts the wrong values.
III—Basic to both his character and his methods of social action was the depth of his experience of God, leading to a sense of divine guidance, of providence, and of God’s love. Adolescence was a time of turbulence before his direction became clear. In later life his sense of God’s presence was subject to interruption by barren periods. The basic orientation of his life was to the divine will. “I saw [prayer and] this [inner] habitation to be safe, to be inwardly quiet, when there was great stirrings and commotions in the world.” Often he sought divine strength, as when he began a major journey into the south and prayed that he might “attend with singleness of heart to the voice of the True Shepherd.” As he grew older, Woolman’s faith in God became increasing strong and gave him the security needed for ethical living. His faith provided a base for social service and his trust in God freed him for social action. [Sometimes] a sense of urgency distinguished his life as he pressed hard for social change. [Other times he would recognize a toned down query on slavery as less than he hoped for, but still a step forward for the people in question, and “[feel] easy to leave all to him who alone is able to turn the hearts of the mighty and make way for the spreading of Truth in the earth.”
Woolman had a strong belief in “The care & providence of the Almighty over his creatures in general & over man as the most noble” among them. He responded with a deep affection & “tenderness towards God & all living creatures, urging that “Friends in all their conduct may be kindly affectioned one toward another.” [Towards those who] couldn’t free their slaves without drastically changing lifestyle [he recognized that] the Lord “begat a spirit of sympathy & tenderness in me toward some who were grievously entangled in the spirit of this world.” He spoke forthrightly against every form of evil; he felt only mercy & love towards the evil-doer.
Quite evident was his humility and diffidence in approaching older, respectable pillars of Quakerdom, to whom he genuinely felt inferior. Woolman’s attitude toward others was derived from his humility before God as he realized his own imperfections. Woolman passed judgment on others as sharing insight available by divine wisdom. A humble approach was more conducive to contacting the divine element in the soul of the other person. Woolman set his own house in order in respect to the evil under discussion. His meekness and gentleness precluded any threat to his fellow man. Benjamin Franklin, while granting his lack of real humility, observed that the appearance of it made people more receptive to his ideas than dogmatic contradiction.
He had remarkable empathy. He welcomed and sometimes sought experiences that would increase his sympathy with those who suffered. [He endured the hardships of] the wilderness to visit Indians. He insisted on going steerage to avoid contributing to the luxurious appointments of the cabins, and to get direct exposure to the miserable conditions in which sailors, including small boys, lived. There he penned his desire “to embrace every opportunity of being inwardly acquainted with the hardships and difficulties of my fellow creatures and to labor in love for the spreading of pure universal righteousness in the earth.
Woolman took the next step of assuming personal responsibility in relations to the evils he encountered; his alert conscious led directly to action. Instances of his trying to “keep clear” of oppression were avoiding the English stagecoach system [because of brutal conditions for young boys & horses], & his refusal to use sugar & molasses because of ill-treated slave labor. “I was led into a close, laborious inquiry whether I kept clear from all things which tended to stir up or were connected with wars here or in Africa.” Large scale social action is readily appreciated, but the purity of one’s own soul is likely to be considered too trivial to warrant serious attention; Woolman thought otherwise. He felt [an imperative call from God to live on as high a level as possible.
He believed that one’s insight into moral and spiritual reality was directly proportionate to the quality of one’s ethical life. He realized the connection between the quality of one’s personal life and effective influence upon others. As he set his personal house in order he was clear that basic changes were needed in society. This involved influencing groups as well as individuals and led him to engage in positive social action. He wrote 2 essays on Some Consideration on the Keeping of Negroes and 1 essay on A Plea for the Poor.
Woolman’s practice of [quiet, private &] personal confrontation had several good effects. [It brought up implications of one’s behavior]; it clarified the issues; it led to deeper fellowship; it laid the basis for group action. He worked through political channels, Quaker meetings, & smaller groups where policies were thrashed out. He wrote letters to particular meetings, or composed letters which leading meetings throughout the colonies adopted. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of 1776 prohibited the owning of slaves 4 years after his death.
Woolman did not rationalize by asking” What can one man do? Nor did he ask what others were doing, or transfer his personal responsibility to another person or group. A striking quality of Woolman which has current relevance was his capacity to see the long-range effects and implications of an act that were overlooked by many. He was especially aware of the far-reaching influence of precedent and example, [such as “humane” slave owners being seen as reason enough to allow it to continue]. He even noted the long-range and often obscure relation of one thing to another [e.g. the effect of the demand for luxury items on overseas trade, society, and conflicts]. A striking testimonial to his integrity, is his insistence that the medicine for his final illness must not be from slave labor or other unjust conditions. His tolerance extended throughout Christianity and beyond. “Sincere upright-hearted people who loved God were accepted of him.” He recognized that God had not appointed the same task to all people, [for instance traveling Quaker ministers who ignored slavery].
IV—Woolman’s way was nonviolence. He believed neither in submission to injustice nor in opposing it by violence. “A time is coming wherein persevering in the meek spirit & abiding firm in the cause of Truth, without complying with oppression, will so spread & prevail that ‘nation shall not lift up sword against nation …” Woolman provides a much needed antidote to the hedonism & narcissism that saturates our society today. [Far from this destructive self-focus], Woolman’s turning self-ward was to increase sensitivity to spiritual reality.
He considered himself a steward of whatever capacities he had, “to consider every day as … lent to me and … to devote my time, and all I had to him who gave it.” He felt a divine call to share “that which lieth heavy on my mind” regarding slavery and war; “a labor attends me to open that love in which the harmony of society standeth, and the growth of the seeds of war to others. [As to one’s place in the world], Woolman said: “A linking was wanting between 2 craving parts of nature, and one is hurled into being as the bridge over that yawning need.” Woolman provides one of the clearest examples of one who found direction and deep meaning—a character realizing the eternal values of truth, beauty, goodness, and love.
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177. Woolman and Blake: Prophets for Today (by Mildred Binns Young; 1971)
About the Author—John Woolman and William Blake were both prophets, and so is Mildred Young. Already the author of 6 pamphlets, she wrote this one some years ago. Mildred has always been guided by concerns well ahead of her own time. She and her husband left Westtown School to work side by side with sharecroppers and tenant farmers in the South. When she writes of poverty, she knows whereof she speaks.
I-II—There is not the least reason to suppose that John Woolman and William Blake ever met or heard of one another. William Blake was only 15 that summer of 1772 when, on the 6th of June, John Woolman “landed at London and went straight-way to the Yearly Meeting of Ministers and Elders which had been gathered.” I love to think that during that week in June, the grave Quaker American may have met the visionary boy on the boy’s “playground.” It is good to think that Woolman’s feet and Blake’s may have walked the same paths that week in June, and that those 2 strangely clear pairs of eyes may have met.
I have put these 2 together because they bring us the same human landscape & reflections upon that landscape. They spoke to their own time & the world wasn’t listening; [we find it hard to listen now]. Blake was to see the development of the industrialism, whose beginnings oppressed Woolman’s heart as he walked north. Blake was to see rural England’s face entirely altered by the Enclosure Act. The year Blake was 12, Ben Franklin wrote that he had seen, “within a year, riots about corn, elections, workhouses; riots of colliers, weavers, coal heavers, sawyers, sailors, Wilkites, government chairmen, smugglers.” Blake was caught up in the Newgate Prison riot. [Corn Laws were passed & ways of cutting bread consumption for the starving masses were sought].
Blake was all his life to see the human waste and wreckage being thrown off by that era's change. Woolman would never have trusted the violence of which [The 2 revolutions & the Napoleonic period] consisted. Blake did trust it temporarily, though even as a boy he suspected that war serves the purposes of the rich & powerful. In a “Prologue” he wrote: “O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue/ To drown the throat of war!—When the senses/Are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness,/Who can stand? When the souls of the oppressed/Fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?/ …O who hath caused this?/ O who can answer at the throne of God?/ The Kings and Nobles of the land have done! Hear it not, Heaven, thy Ministers have done it!
III—One crucial difference between Woolman and Blake was that Woolman was handfasted in love to a community to whom his pleadings were addressed whereas Blake cried into the empty air, [“in the wilderness.”] Wool, by contrast, addressed Friends as individuals; he addressed himself as one of them. [He called on] the Society of Friends to resist the wrong in society with all the weight of their own way of life. He saw the seeds of war in slavery and destitution and saw human depravity as a fruit of war and enslavement. On the state of the working poor he wrote: “Great numbers of poor people live chiefly on bread and water in the Southern part of England, and some in the northern parts … there are many poor children not even taught to Read.”
Blake saw the conditions, & the later aggravation of the conditions, that Woolman describes only as they were reflected in the London population into which many of the most desperate people drifted. [Blake wrote poems against: rich monopoly of property; neglect & exploitation of the human mind & body, & of children; drafting of youth; degeneration of sexual morality & family life. Chattel slavery he didn't see in London, but he knows that England’s slave ships plied profitably between Africa & America. He raised his voice against slavery wherever he saw it: white enslaving Negro, man enslaving woman, woman enslaving man, rich enslaving poor. Blake, like Woolman raised his voice against exchanges that are controlled by power & money’s authority.
IV—Woolman’s insight into oppressions was everywhere as keen as Blake’s except in what Blake called “Sexual Strife.” He included all relations of men & women, economic, physical & emotional, the miseducation of girls & boys for adult relationships; & the conflict between parents & their progeny. [Woolman rarely mentions this issue except for feeling] “pure love, in which desires prevail for the health & Soundness of the family.” It is likely he knew the problem but, having no specific answers to offer, wouldn’t try to make recommendations. Blake insists that more freedom & a complete change of attitude & education, the unbinding of legal change of attitude & education, the unbinding of legal restrictions, & a joyous naturalness between the sexes would release men & women from it. For Woolman the root was “pure wisdom.” It is pure, placed in the human mind … it proceeds from God. It is deep & inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any.
V—Woolman was concerned with economics, convinced that the spiritual life of men and women is deeply conditioned by their economic life. [Too much or too little labor] hurt him deeply. It hurt him to see the whole life of any person pre-empted by labor, whether by necessity in order to obtain a living or by choice in order to obtain opulence. Woolman’s economics seemed unrealistic to his contemporaries, and may seem unrealistic to us now. He thought that if Friends would not crave surplus, or accumulate estates, they could influence national economies and check the trend toward government based on money and power.
[Before] he went to England on his last journey, he left with the clerk of the Meeting for Sufferings of Philadelphia YM, an Epistle addressed to Quarterly & Monthly Meetings of Friends. [The following are excerpts]:
“A trust is committed to us, a great and weighty trust. [When] members use themselves against the purity of our principles, [it is] a breach of this trust, a step backwards, undoing what God has done through God’s servants. Can our hearts endure if we desert a cause, if we turn aside from a work under which so many have patiently labored? [This, Isaiah says] is like when standard bearer fainteth … In the desire of outward gain, the mind is prevented from a perfect attention to the voice of Christ. In the weaning of the mind from all things [not to be] enjoyed in the Divine will, the pure Light shines into the soul …”
“How strongly doth unfaithfulness operate against the spreading of the peaceable, harmonious principle & Truth testimony amongst humankind? We who profess this peaceable principle may be faithful standard-bearers under the prince of peace. Have the treasures I possess been gathered in wisdom from above? Have none of my fellow-creatures an equitable right to any part of that called mine? This condition where all our wants & desires are bounded by pure wisdom, & our minds attentive to Christ’s inward council, hath appeared to me as a habitation of safety for the Lord’s people in time of outward commotion & trouble.”
VI—[The occasion of John Woolman’s visit to London YM of Ministers & Elders is presented in the fanciful version in Janet Whitney’s John Woolman:] “He arrived a half-hour late after a 39-day voyage, walked in & laid his [travel] minute on the clerk’s desk. This was the most august body to be found in that day’s Quakerdom. American Friends recommended John Woolman as “one in good esteem among us.” The response was: “Perhaps the stranger Friend might feel his dedication of himself to this apprehended service was accepted, without further labor, & that he might feel free to return to his home.”
John Woolman struggled with his emotion over such a rebuff in silence. Then he rose & said that, although he couldn’t feel himself released from the labor upon which he had come, yet he couldn’t feel free to travel in ministry without Friends’ consent, nor was he willing to be an expense to them. He hoped Friends would give him employment until they [were] willing for him to carry out his concern. After a long silence he felt “that rise which prepares [one] to stand like a trumpet through which the Lord speaks to his flock.” He preached in full authority of the inward commission that he had left home & crossed the ocean with. The Friend suggesting a return home confessed his error; John Woolman was “welcomed & owned.”
VII—[The following are excerpts from Woolman’s last 4 essays]: “[Loving the Lord and all creatures], we are then preserved in Tenderness toward Human and Animal. If another Spirit gets Room in our Minds, we are then in the Way of disordering the Affairs of Society. They may be so entangled therein as to be estranged from the pure sympathizing Spirit. I have had a tender Feeling [towards] poor People, some of whom though honest and industrious, have nothing to spare towards Schooling. Labor in the right Medium is healthy, but in too much there is painful Weariness [and want]. When I have beheld the Condition of poor, [uneducated] Children, and the Weakly and Aged, [I think that] some who live in Fullness need to be put in Remembrance.
He who stands in the lowest Station in society, appears to be entitled to as comfortable and convenient a Living, as he whose Gifts of mind are greater. As we know not that our Children will dwell in that State in which Power is rightly applied to lay up Riches for them appears to against the nature of God’s government. They who walk in the pure light, their Minds are prepared to taste and relish those Blessings which are Spiritual and the Sweetness and Satisfaction in the right Use of good Gifts in the Creation. Happiness stands in a Heart devoted to follow Christ in the Use of all Things. To labor that our Children may live comfortably appears to be a Duty. But if in striving to shun Poverty, we do not walk in that State where Christ is our life; then we wander.
To keep to right Means in laboring to attain a right End is necessary. [Those attaining Treasure], and yet being Strangers to the Voice of Christ … Treasures thus gotten may be like Snares to the Feet of their Posterity. Many in striving to get Treasures, have stumbled upon the dark Mountains.” The shaft of the above messages’ meaning strikes through nearly 200 years of changing conditions to the heart of much that still confounds us.
VIII—With the Industrial Revolution proceeding apace, and the adjustments that were needed to preserve human values lagging behind. Blake was writing his great, and greatly obscure prophetic poems. In our own century their own relevance glares at us out of their cloudy rhetoric. In the years before Waterloo, Blake was writing his immense poem called The 4 Zoas. One paragraph reads: “Compel the poor to live upon a Crust of bread, by soft mild arts.” [The rest of the paragraph describes how the rich reinterpret and rationalize and distort the condition and responses of the poor to keep them under control]. Humans have come under the dominion of their own greed and their own machines, and have lost the knack of refusing to cooperate in our own destruction.
Within Blake’s lifetime there were 2 revolutions; in our time, how many revolutions? And 2 World Wars. In both times rural life has been devastated, & human life & the humanness of life have been forfeit as “They forged the sword, the chariot of war, the battle ax,/ The trumpet fitted to the battle & the flute of summer,/ all the arts of life they changed into the arts of death.” We have relieved the majority of hard, brutalizing drudgery, but we have tied ourselves hand & foot to the machines that relieved us. ⅓ of the people of the most affluent nation in the world today belong to an “other America,” rejected into functionless neglect & living at the verge of want.
[IX]—Mark Schorer points out that “[Blake] points in many directions, but for Blake all these directions pointed back to the single fact: the substitution of mechanical for living values.” “Attempting to be more than Man We become less,” Blake makes one of his immortals say at the Great final feast. Woolman called on Friends to put themselves into the place of those who are oppressed, into the place of those who are being made less than men in order that Man may attempt to be more than Man, where the poor prey on the even poorer. Woolman and Blake saw that it is for man, with his God-given grace of insight, with “Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,” to mitigate suffering where he can, and never to increase it willfully.
X—Blake’s mind was much more complex than Woolman’s, for all the similarity of their prophetic insight. Blake had not undergone the intense inner simplification that pure wisdom had early wrought in Woolman’s character. In “The Divine Image,” Blake says in part: “For Mercy, [Cruelty, hungry Gorge], has a human heart,/ Pity[, Jealousy, a Furnace sealed,] a human face,/ And Love[, Terror, a fiery Forge,] the form divine,/ And Peace[, Secrecy, forged iron,] the human dress.”
All his life Blake was poor and his best work was scorned. It was not in the current fashion. He kept time free for his own graphic art and for his poetry even though he could not sell the pictures or publish the poetry. In his last years, a group of young artists gathered around him, buying enough of his pictures to keep him and Catherine in food and firing. Samuel Palmer wrote: “He ennobled poverty by his conversation.”
Blake’s poverty was not his choice except by his refusal to cater to popular taste. John Woolman’s poverty was the expression of a conviction; he too ennobled it. Blake knew the rejection of the best he had to offer, as John Woolman knew it that day in 1772, [in the initial rejection of his English ministry.] John Blake, near the end of his myth Jerusalem, writes: “Jesus said: ‘Wouldst thou love one who had never died/ For thee, or ever die for one who had not died for thee? And if God dieth not for Man & giveth not himself/ Eternally for Man, Man could not exist; for Man is Love/ As God is Love: every kindness to another is a little Death/ in the Divine Image, nor can Man exist but by Brotherhood.”
XI—John Woolman wrote about a dream he had during severe illness: “I was brought so near to death, I forgot my name. I saw [& was part of] a dull gloomy mass of matter … An angel’s voice spake: John Woolman is dead. I remembered that I was once John Woolman. I was carried to … where poor oppressed people were digging treasures for “Christians.” [The heathen said that] if Christ directed them to use us in this sort then Christ is a cruel tyrant. At length I felt divine power, and then I said, ‘I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me. And I perceived that John Woolman is dead, meant no more than the death of my own will.” Woolman and Blake both submitted to a binding and chaining in tasks laid on them not by their own choice, and in submission to the task they each found freedom.
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19 TH CENTURY
About the Author—Maureen Graham is currently completing her training as a pastoral counselor in Claremont, CA. She joined Friends in St. Andrews, Scotland, the land of her birth. She received Earlham School of Religion’s Master’s of Ministry degree in 1986. Maureen has a long-standing concern for the spiritual and psychological empowerment of women. Standing in a tradition of Quaker women ministers—women who knew the transforming power of the living God—Maureen seeks to embody that knowledge in her own life and work.
[Introduction]—In 1784 Rebecca Jones, Quaker minister from Philadelphia, ministered to the men of London YM saying that, in Christ, male and female were one. In 1842’s England, Elizabeth Fry talked to the Secretary of State about a new female prison, and women’s position in penal colonies. In 1853 Lucretia Coffin Mott presided over an unruly New York Women’s Rights Convention with poise and authority. In 1860, Rachel Hicks, a Hicksite minister, traveled the Midwest exhorting Friends to live obedient to the divine light within.
What is it about the religious experience of these women that allowed them to overcome social attitudes & practices which encouraged passivity & subordination? What can their lives say to those of us who stand in their tradition & seek to be faithful ministers in our time? The religious experience took place within an inner space created by the practice of Quaker spirituality with its strong emphasis on waiting in silence.
In the space created by such silence she was led to inner examination. She learned to experience the Presence & God’s Voice within her. She found she was given power to make changes in her life & her Self. She found she could speak & act with integrity by the inner authority her practice established. A community of peers then provided the outer space for women to move into an active life of religious leadership. The role of minister gave women Quakers the possibility of claiming an autonomous identity & following a challenging career relatively free from social & family constraints, but within an often hostile environment. [Differences in each woman’s life] shaped their experience & actions in different ways. The tensions in these women’s lives reflect the tensions of interpretation & direction within the Society of Friends as it responded to social and cultural change.
REBECCA JONES 1739-1817—Rebecca Jones was brought up in Philadelphia by her single mother “in the way of the Church of England.” “But I loved vanity and folly, and to keep unprofitable company … I often promised to amend for I greatly feared to die. But alas! though I made covenant, I soon forgot it … thus added sin to rebellion for some time.” Catherine Peyton [came] “to speak so pertinently to my situation … that I cried out to the bitterness of my heart, ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me do to be saved?’ “I was greatly polluted—lay wallowing in the filthiness of the flesh, without any succor from temporal connections, and a stranger to the Lord’s family … I was again encouraged by the renewal of divine favor to enter into a solemn covenant with that gracious Being against whom I had so highly rebelled … in this day of my humiliation.”
A choice is required between world’s way & religion’s way. A choice is made involving a yielding to God. Yielding is followed by despair & suffering which focused for Rebecca on her sense of unworthiness & unclean-ness. The movement is from unworthiness, inadequacy & uncleanness to purification & acceptance. She described herself as a branch from the wild olive, grafted onto a good olive tree. She gained an identity & a morally upright, religiously devout family among whom were some of the most prominent & well-respected of the city.
The resolution of inner conflict was accompanied by new certainty & inner security which released energy & power; it also led to outer conflict. [Her mother’s desire that] Rebecca teach dance, music, & embroidery [conflicted] with Quaker’s avoiding frivolities like dancing & singing. “The more [I turned] my back on those things which … I greatly delighted in, the more strength increased”; she was thus able to stand up to family & friends.
In meeting she often felt that she was being required to rise and speak, yet she was afraid of “marring the Lord’s work.” [It took much suffering, but finally] “I stood up in much fear and trembling and expressed a few sentences very brokenly. I returned home with the promised reward of peace.” To stand up and speak was known to be the 1st step toward becoming a “public” friend. Her frequent warnings to herself against self-exaltation suggests that she felt [how attractive] the prospect was. Such a challenging, demanding life was also frightening.
She resolved her dilemma by experiencing it as a submission to God; she wasn’t claiming any power for herself. As she grew more confident in the minister role, Rebecca became an active leader in her meetings, monthly & yearly. She journeyed in ministry to Great Britain & Ireland from 1784-1788; the journey was an experience of deep dependence on the guiding, sustaining power of God.
She was able to move forward because God is there. She “took up the cross” through submission to the Spirit’s work & absolute trust in the inner Voice. [She gained] access to an inner power which overcomes fears, doubts & external opposition, which distinguishes right from wrong, which comforts & sustains. She learned to act as moral agent in control of her own life. She saw herself as weak & dependent; strength belonged to God. Divinity authority & power are located within the woman minister. There is amazing potential for the woman to claim dynamic power, agency & authority; Rebecca doesn’t make this step. Her self & God is firmly divided & often in opposition to one another. When the men of London YM suggested setting up a Women’s Meeting would give the body 2 heads, Rebecca replied that [Christ was the one head], & in Christ male & female are one.
Rebecca Jones was part of a Friends’ network who traveled together, advised, & supported each other in their ministry. [They led] the Quietist reformation of the 18th century. They attempted to renew the Spirit’s life, & rid Friends of worldliness. Rebecca’s story is similar to those of the 20 women ministers of the 18th century whose journals were published in 1875. Her story was held up as a model to Quaker women of the 19th century.
RACHEL HICKS 1789-1878—Rachel was a Quietist minister, a religious leader within the Hicksite branch of Friends. She witnessed the bitter infighting among Friends, the suffering of the Civil War, and the decline of Friends’ Meetings She saw her role as that of a faithful standard-bearer “inciting the people to the Divine Light within” and to the path of simple obedience. Raised strictly as a Friend, Rachel was guarded from the youthful misbehavior that plagued Rachel. [She writes of an 8 year-old memory: “I lay for several hours bemoaning my condition, until He who sees the heart was pleased to forgive, and speak comfortably to my soul … I have a great fear of offending Him from whom I could not hide my most secret thoughts.”
Her parents [taught] her a fear of dying unprepared. She feared wrong-doing & punishment, [rather than Rebecca’s fear of unworthiness]. [She took the side opposite her father in the Hicksite-Orthodox split], & said, “Never has [God] given me to see that … to obey His will inwardly revealed as the only way to the Kingdom of Heaven is to be given up.” At 19, she heard a voice: “If faithful … thou wilt … speak in my name to assemblies of people, & travel extensively.” She wrote: “This was an unexpected, unwelcome, [and impossible] message.”
She then lost her sense of God’s presence. For 20 years Rachel struggled with the call to minister, until the certainty of eternal damnation would be hers compelled her to rise and speak. “After I made a surrender … I oft felt His peace to flow in my heart as a river.” In Rachel Hicks’ journal “Thy will be done” is written on nearly every page; she was given many crosses to bear, [many deaths in the family, and journeys in the ministry].
If Rebecca Jones worried about worthiness, Rachel Hicks worried about obedience and wrath of God. Her problem was a wayward will, and the solution was submission to the will of God. Rachel’s ability to survive suffering and the subsequent return of life and power confirmed her faith in God and increased her strength and courage. 60 years after Rebecca Jones, Rachel Hicks was one of a dying breed of traditional traveling ministers, a lone prophet and part of the faithful remnant calling people back to faithful obedience.
Rachel discovered the same guiding and sustaining presence that Rebecca discovered. For Rachel, [the “preparation” for] speaking was always particularly difficult. “[None] can realize the humiliation of the creature [in] becoming an empty vessel, nor the wonder and admiration that fills the heart, when in this emptiness a passage of Scripture, or a sentence arises in the mind with a command, “Rise and utter it, and I will be with thee … words and matter have flowed as fast as I could give utterance.” For Rachel, [in her relationship with the Word of God], it is a question of ability and competence. The voice is not hers but God’s. Power and presence depend upon total surrender of self-will. Yet, despite her disclaimers, the Voice of God she speaks comes from deep within her and allows her to act with the power and presence of mature agency.
ELIZABETH GURNEY FRY 1780-1845—[Compared to the 1st 2 women mentioned], the intensity of the inner conflict between self and God has softened. [Her family background] contributed to a sense of inner worth. Her family were “gay” Friends who did not require strict adherence to the discipline of plain dress and speech. Elizabeth’s childhood was clouded by fears—of the dark, of the sea, and of death. She was often sick, and felt inferior to her elder sisters. She struggled with frivolity as being a waste of time, not as being a sin. She writes: “I don’t feel any real religion … I am a bubble, without reason, without beauty of mind or person; I am a fool.” An American “plain” Quaker made such an impression on her that she felt there is a God and thought she may have to become a “plain” Quaker. This path was confirmed a few months later.
Elizabeth was self-critical, yet her writing lacks intense shame or guilt. In fact: “It is wicked to despair of myself, it is the way to make me what I desire not to be.” The path of a Quaker minister is one she feels able to consider. It is an alluring possibility rather than a terrifying demand. Elizabeth’s identity as a Quaker emerged and was strengthened as she stood up to external pressure. She adopted the plain dress and she started a Sunday- school project for poor children on the family estate. She writes: “When I have followed … this Voice, yet I never have failed to feel content in doing so; even to be amply rewarded … The only true standard I can have to direct myself by is that which experience proves to give me the most happiness, by enabling me to be virtuous.”
She was forced to sharpen her powers of inner discernment, to make moral choices & to carry them out de-spite others’ opinions. Even at this stage of her life, new energy & power she felt from religious experience & commitment were expressed in works of direct charity. 18 years after reading the Bible to her “children,” she was reading the Bible to the women prisoners in Newgate. Yet, a diffidence & a sense of insecurity accompanied her throughout life & she was subject to bouts of fear & despair. Elizabeth noted, “I make myself appear almost weak by my fear of other people. I feel a difficulty in doing what I think right.” “I feel of myself no power for [vocal ministry] … yet when the feeling and power continue, so that I dare not omit it then what can I do?
She was recognized as a minister in 1811 at the age of 31; this work didn’t satisfy her need for purpose & fulfillment. She found in her work in Newgate prison, “a peace & prosperity … that I seldom remember to have done before. Each crisis was a new test of faith & trust. Her [favorite] text was “Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.” She learned to reach that place where God’s loving presence would carry her through. This ability enabled her to face the violence of prisoners & the obstructive authority of prison governors & politicians.
[Compared to the 1st 2 women mentioned], Elizabeth’s self & God are closer together—they belong to the same loving family. She was dependent on her Father, but not at the expense of her self or powers which her Father wished her to use well. Elizabeth’s beliefs maintained human nature’s sinfulness. A life of usefulness & active service then became a duty, a responsibility, & a way of showing love. Feeling undeserving set limits to her ability to act authoritatively in the world & prevented her from challenging authority structures. She chose the path of caring for the poor & imprisoned—a path which met with approval. She wrote: “Far be it from me … to persuade women to forsake their right province. My only desire is that they should fill that province well.”
LUCRETIA MOTT 1793-1880—Lucretia Mott fully lived into the radical power & agency that Quaker practice offers women. [As part of] the independent, close-knit community of Quaker whalers on Nantucket, she had a sense of self-worth & identity, & models of strong independent women. [When faced with injustice], she proclaimed, “The injustice … was apparent; I resolved to claim for myself all that a fair Creator had bestowed.”
Her husband’s (James Mott) support was crucial to her work & ministry. The spiritual crisis which sharpened & deepened Lucretia’s religious experience & identity was after her little son’s death. She [didn’t] believe that her God could ever command acts of injustice & suffering. Suffering was from ignorance of God’s natural laws, not divine test or punishment. As she struggled with these issues & with grief, she experienced a deepened sense of God’s presence & loving power. She felt Spirit moving within her, propelling her to speak. The foundation for Lucretia’s activism was religious experience. [When she spoke, it was] only as the Spirit gave her words.
Lucretia feels able to consecrate herself to ministry, without need for external authority; she aligns her work with God. Self & God have a mutual, non-hierarchical relationship. The disappearance of the split between self & God is mirrored in harmony between divine & natural, & in equality between men & women. There isn’t just a knowledge of ethical principles, but a felt ethical presence & power guiding & pushing toward action. How was Lucretia, [how can we] overcome inner separation of self & God? 1st, strong belief in self. 2nd, [the Hicksite-Orthodox split] forced the Society to divide along theological grounds. Lucretia was free to develop understanding of Inner Light outside traditional Christian theology; she was able to reject the doctrine of human depravity.
Elizabeth Fry was unable to claim divine power for herself and was only able to assert human equality on grounds of all people being sinners before God. [While Elizabeth claimed] women’s power and authority only within the women’s sphere, Lucretia claimed it within the male sphere as well. When self and God are allied, the self can claim an inner authority, an inner truth, from which to oppose both secular and religious authority.
Lucretia’s struggle centered around an outer conflict between self-God and structures of injustice. “Too many of our sex are insensible of their wrongs, and incapable of fully appreciating the blessings of freedom.” Opposition and accusations from the authorities within the yearly meeting hurt her deeply. She stayed with the Quaker fold even though few could follow her radical understanding and experience of the Quaker faith. The power of her ministry and leadership was widely respected.
Lucretia’s path was the discovery of a moral agency. Her path led to suffering and often went against her wishes for security and comfort. The life of moral agency did not require self-mortification and denial. Willingness has replaced submission. The will of God is an inner divine force for truth and righteousness with which we can choose to align our lives and our actions, to embody power and presence in our work for love and justice.
This examination of the psychological and spiritual development of 4 Quaker women ministers has shown a process of psychological growth through inner and outer conflict to resolution in a life of active engagement. Important parts of the process for these women included: defining identity in relation to family; discovering a public voice to speak the truth; claiming a vocation which gave meaning to their own experience.
The extent to which these women claimed their own dynamic power depended on their understanding of the relationship between self and God. Their understanding and experience of this relationship depended upon their childhood experience, social & historical location, & theological discourse. The amount of power & authority they located in God or self shaped their relationship to external authority. The personal journeys of these 4 women & the conflicts they encountered mirrored those of corporate religious bodies of which they were part. Rebecca’s witness grew out of discipline & withdrawal from the world, like other 18th century Friends. The lives of Rachel Hicks, Elizabeth Fry & Lucretia Mott reflect different answers to the tensions & conflicts present within Quaker theology & practice which divided Quaker communities in the 19th century. They represent, respectively, Conservative, Evangelical, & Liberal emphases which emerged in the 19th century.
As a Quaker woman, I am proud to stand in such a tradition. I am challenged to look within, to find Truth in my own experience, to live life [from my depths]. I am challenged to act with power and presence in my world —doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with my God.
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177. Woolman and Blake: Prophets for Today (by Mildred Binns Young; 1971)
About the Author—John Woolman and William Blake were both prophets, and so is Mildred Young. Already the author of 6 pamphlets, she wrote this one some years ago. Mildred has always been guided by concerns well ahead of her own time. She and her husband left Westtown School to work side by side with sharecroppers and tenant farmers in the South. When she writes of poverty, she knows whereof she speaks.
I-II—There is not the least reason to suppose that John Woolman and William Blake ever met or heard of one another. William Blake was only 15 that summer of 1772 when, on the 6th of June, John Woolman “landed at London and went straight-way to the Yearly Meeting of Ministers and Elders which had been gathered.” I love to think that during that week in June, the grave Quaker American may have met the visionary boy on the boy’s “playground.” It is good to think that Woolman’s feet and Blake’s may have walked the same paths that week in June, and that those 2 strangely clear pairs of eyes may have met.
I have put these 2 together because they bring us the same human landscape & reflections upon that landscape. They spoke to their own time & the world wasn’t listening; [we find it hard to listen now]. Blake was to see the development of the industrialism, whose beginnings oppressed Woolman’s heart as he walked north. Blake was to see rural England’s face entirely altered by the Enclosure Act. The year Blake was 12, Ben Franklin wrote that he had seen, “within a year, riots about corn, elections, workhouses; riots of colliers, weavers, coal heavers, sawyers, sailors, Wilkites, government chairmen, smugglers.” Blake was caught up in the Newgate Prison riot. [Corn Laws were passed & ways of cutting bread consumption for the starving masses were sought].
Blake was all his life to see the human waste and wreckage being thrown off by that era's change. Woolman would never have trusted the violence of which [The 2 revolutions & the Napoleonic period] consisted. Blake did trust it temporarily, though even as a boy he suspected that war serves the purposes of the rich & powerful. In a “Prologue” he wrote: “O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue/ To drown the throat of war!—When the senses/Are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness,/Who can stand? When the souls of the oppressed/Fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?/ …O who hath caused this?/ O who can answer at the throne of God?/ The Kings and Nobles of the land have done! Hear it not, Heaven, thy Ministers have done it!
III—One crucial difference between Woolman and Blake was that Woolman was handfasted in love to a community to whom his pleadings were addressed whereas Blake cried into the empty air, [“in the wilderness.”] Wool, by contrast, addressed Friends as individuals; he addressed himself as one of them. [He called on] the Society of Friends to resist the wrong in society with all the weight of their own way of life. He saw the seeds of war in slavery and destitution and saw human depravity as a fruit of war and enslavement. On the state of the working poor he wrote: “Great numbers of poor people live chiefly on bread and water in the Southern part of England, and some in the northern parts … there are many poor children not even taught to Read.”
Blake saw the conditions, & the later aggravation of the conditions, that Woolman describes only as they were reflected in the London population into which many of the most desperate people drifted. [Blake wrote poems against: rich monopoly of property; neglect & exploitation of the human mind & body, & of children; drafting of youth; degeneration of sexual morality & family life. Chattel slavery he didn't see in London, but he knows that England’s slave ships plied profitably between Africa & America. He raised his voice against slavery wherever he saw it: white enslaving Negro, man enslaving woman, woman enslaving man, rich enslaving poor. Blake, like Woolman raised his voice against exchanges that are controlled by power & money’s authority.
IV—Woolman’s insight into oppressions was everywhere as keen as Blake’s except in what Blake called “Sexual Strife.” He included all relations of men & women, economic, physical & emotional, the miseducation of girls & boys for adult relationships; & the conflict between parents & their progeny. [Woolman rarely mentions this issue except for feeling] “pure love, in which desires prevail for the health & Soundness of the family.” It is likely he knew the problem but, having no specific answers to offer, wouldn’t try to make recommendations. Blake insists that more freedom & a complete change of attitude & education, the unbinding of legal change of attitude & education, the unbinding of legal restrictions, & a joyous naturalness between the sexes would release men & women from it. For Woolman the root was “pure wisdom.” It is pure, placed in the human mind … it proceeds from God. It is deep & inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any.
V—Woolman was concerned with economics, convinced that the spiritual life of men and women is deeply conditioned by their economic life. [Too much or too little labor] hurt him deeply. It hurt him to see the whole life of any person pre-empted by labor, whether by necessity in order to obtain a living or by choice in order to obtain opulence. Woolman’s economics seemed unrealistic to his contemporaries, and may seem unrealistic to us now. He thought that if Friends would not crave surplus, or accumulate estates, they could influence national economies and check the trend toward government based on money and power.
[Before] he went to England on his last journey, he left with the clerk of the Meeting for Sufferings of Philadelphia YM, an Epistle addressed to Quarterly & Monthly Meetings of Friends. [The following are excerpts]:
“A trust is committed to us, a great and weighty trust. [When] members use themselves against the purity of our principles, [it is] a breach of this trust, a step backwards, undoing what God has done through God’s servants. Can our hearts endure if we desert a cause, if we turn aside from a work under which so many have patiently labored? [This, Isaiah says] is like when standard bearer fainteth … In the desire of outward gain, the mind is prevented from a perfect attention to the voice of Christ. In the weaning of the mind from all things [not to be] enjoyed in the Divine will, the pure Light shines into the soul …”
“How strongly doth unfaithfulness operate against the spreading of the peaceable, harmonious principle & Truth testimony amongst humankind? We who profess this peaceable principle may be faithful standard-bearers under the prince of peace. Have the treasures I possess been gathered in wisdom from above? Have none of my fellow-creatures an equitable right to any part of that called mine? This condition where all our wants & desires are bounded by pure wisdom, & our minds attentive to Christ’s inward council, hath appeared to me as a habitation of safety for the Lord’s people in time of outward commotion & trouble.”
VI—[The occasion of John Woolman’s visit to London YM of Ministers & Elders is presented in the fanciful version in Janet Whitney’s John Woolman:] “He arrived a half-hour late after a 39-day voyage, walked in & laid his [travel] minute on the clerk’s desk. This was the most august body to be found in that day’s Quakerdom. American Friends recommended John Woolman as “one in good esteem among us.” The response was: “Perhaps the stranger Friend might feel his dedication of himself to this apprehended service was accepted, without further labor, & that he might feel free to return to his home.”
John Woolman struggled with his emotion over such a rebuff in silence. Then he rose & said that, although he couldn’t feel himself released from the labor upon which he had come, yet he couldn’t feel free to travel in ministry without Friends’ consent, nor was he willing to be an expense to them. He hoped Friends would give him employment until they [were] willing for him to carry out his concern. After a long silence he felt “that rise which prepares [one] to stand like a trumpet through which the Lord speaks to his flock.” He preached in full authority of the inward commission that he had left home & crossed the ocean with. The Friend suggesting a return home confessed his error; John Woolman was “welcomed & owned.”
VII—[The following are excerpts from Woolman’s last 4 essays]: “[Loving the Lord and all creatures], we are then preserved in Tenderness toward Human and Animal. If another Spirit gets Room in our Minds, we are then in the Way of disordering the Affairs of Society. They may be so entangled therein as to be estranged from the pure sympathizing Spirit. I have had a tender Feeling [towards] poor People, some of whom though honest and industrious, have nothing to spare towards Schooling. Labor in the right Medium is healthy, but in too much there is painful Weariness [and want]. When I have beheld the Condition of poor, [uneducated] Children, and the Weakly and Aged, [I think that] some who live in Fullness need to be put in Remembrance.
He who stands in the lowest Station in society, appears to be entitled to as comfortable and convenient a Living, as he whose Gifts of mind are greater. As we know not that our Children will dwell in that State in which Power is rightly applied to lay up Riches for them appears to against the nature of God’s government. They who walk in the pure light, their Minds are prepared to taste and relish those Blessings which are Spiritual and the Sweetness and Satisfaction in the right Use of good Gifts in the Creation. Happiness stands in a Heart devoted to follow Christ in the Use of all Things. To labor that our Children may live comfortably appears to be a Duty. But if in striving to shun Poverty, we do not walk in that State where Christ is our life; then we wander.
To keep to right Means in laboring to attain a right End is necessary. [Those attaining Treasure], and yet being Strangers to the Voice of Christ … Treasures thus gotten may be like Snares to the Feet of their Posterity. Many in striving to get Treasures, have stumbled upon the dark Mountains.” The shaft of the above messages’ meaning strikes through nearly 200 years of changing conditions to the heart of much that still confounds us.
VIII—With the Industrial Revolution proceeding apace, and the adjustments that were needed to preserve human values lagging behind. Blake was writing his great, and greatly obscure prophetic poems. In our own century their own relevance glares at us out of their cloudy rhetoric. In the years before Waterloo, Blake was writing his immense poem called The 4 Zoas. One paragraph reads: “Compel the poor to live upon a Crust of bread, by soft mild arts.” [The rest of the paragraph describes how the rich reinterpret and rationalize and distort the condition and responses of the poor to keep them under control]. Humans have come under the dominion of their own greed and their own machines, and have lost the knack of refusing to cooperate in our own destruction.
Within Blake’s lifetime there were 2 revolutions; in our time, how many revolutions? And 2 World Wars. In both times rural life has been devastated, & human life & the humanness of life have been forfeit as “They forged the sword, the chariot of war, the battle ax,/ The trumpet fitted to the battle & the flute of summer,/ all the arts of life they changed into the arts of death.” We have relieved the majority of hard, brutalizing drudgery, but we have tied ourselves hand & foot to the machines that relieved us. ⅓ of the people of the most affluent nation in the world today belong to an “other America,” rejected into functionless neglect & living at the verge of want.
[IX]—Mark Schorer points out that “[Blake] points in many directions, but for Blake all these directions pointed back to the single fact: the substitution of mechanical for living values.” “Attempting to be more than Man We become less,” Blake makes one of his immortals say at the Great final feast. Woolman called on Friends to put themselves into the place of those who are oppressed, into the place of those who are being made less than men in order that Man may attempt to be more than Man, where the poor prey on the even poorer. Woolman and Blake saw that it is for man, with his God-given grace of insight, with “Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,” to mitigate suffering where he can, and never to increase it willfully.
X—Blake’s mind was much more complex than Woolman’s, for all the similarity of their prophetic insight. Blake had not undergone the intense inner simplification that pure wisdom had early wrought in Woolman’s character. In “The Divine Image,” Blake says in part: “For Mercy, [Cruelty, hungry Gorge], has a human heart,/ Pity[, Jealousy, a Furnace sealed,] a human face,/ And Love[, Terror, a fiery Forge,] the form divine,/ And Peace[, Secrecy, forged iron,] the human dress.”
All his life Blake was poor and his best work was scorned. It was not in the current fashion. He kept time free for his own graphic art and for his poetry even though he could not sell the pictures or publish the poetry. In his last years, a group of young artists gathered around him, buying enough of his pictures to keep him and Catherine in food and firing. Samuel Palmer wrote: “He ennobled poverty by his conversation.”
Blake’s poverty was not his choice except by his refusal to cater to popular taste. John Woolman’s poverty was the expression of a conviction; he too ennobled it. Blake knew the rejection of the best he had to offer, as John Woolman knew it that day in 1772, [in the initial rejection of his English ministry.] John Blake, near the end of his myth Jerusalem, writes: “Jesus said: ‘Wouldst thou love one who had never died/ For thee, or ever die for one who had not died for thee? And if God dieth not for Man & giveth not himself/ Eternally for Man, Man could not exist; for Man is Love/ As God is Love: every kindness to another is a little Death/ in the Divine Image, nor can Man exist but by Brotherhood.”
XI—John Woolman wrote about a dream he had during severe illness: “I was brought so near to death, I forgot my name. I saw [& was part of] a dull gloomy mass of matter … An angel’s voice spake: John Woolman is dead. I remembered that I was once John Woolman. I was carried to … where poor oppressed people were digging treasures for “Christians.” [The heathen said that] if Christ directed them to use us in this sort then Christ is a cruel tyrant. At length I felt divine power, and then I said, ‘I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me. And I perceived that John Woolman is dead, meant no more than the death of my own will.” Woolman and Blake both submitted to a binding and chaining in tasks laid on them not by their own choice, and in submission to the task they each found freedom.
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19 TH CENTURY
294. Women of Power and Presence: The Spiritual Formation of 4 Quaker Women Ministers (by Maureen Graham; 1990)
[Introduction]—In 1784 Rebecca Jones, Quaker minister from Philadelphia, ministered to the men of London YM saying that, in Christ, male and female were one. In 1842’s England, Elizabeth Fry talked to the Secretary of State about a new female prison, and women’s position in penal colonies. In 1853 Lucretia Coffin Mott presided over an unruly New York Women’s Rights Convention with poise and authority. In 1860, Rachel Hicks, a Hicksite minister, traveled the Midwest exhorting Friends to live obedient to the divine light within.
What is it about the religious experience of these women that allowed them to overcome social attitudes & practices which encouraged passivity & subordination? What can their lives say to those of us who stand in their tradition & seek to be faithful ministers in our time? The religious experience took place within an inner space created by the practice of Quaker spirituality with its strong emphasis on waiting in silence.
In the space created by such silence she was led to inner examination. She learned to experience the Presence & God’s Voice within her. She found she was given power to make changes in her life & her Self. She found she could speak & act with integrity by the inner authority her practice established. A community of peers then provided the outer space for women to move into an active life of religious leadership. The role of minister gave women Quakers the possibility of claiming an autonomous identity & following a challenging career relatively free from social & family constraints, but within an often hostile environment. [Differences in each woman’s life] shaped their experience & actions in different ways. The tensions in these women’s lives reflect the tensions of interpretation & direction within the Society of Friends as it responded to social and cultural change.
REBECCA JONES 1739-1817—Rebecca Jones was brought up in Philadelphia by her single mother “in the way of the Church of England.” “But I loved vanity and folly, and to keep unprofitable company … I often promised to amend for I greatly feared to die. But alas! though I made covenant, I soon forgot it … thus added sin to rebellion for some time.” Catherine Peyton [came] “to speak so pertinently to my situation … that I cried out to the bitterness of my heart, ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me do to be saved?’ “I was greatly polluted—lay wallowing in the filthiness of the flesh, without any succor from temporal connections, and a stranger to the Lord’s family … I was again encouraged by the renewal of divine favor to enter into a solemn covenant with that gracious Being against whom I had so highly rebelled … in this day of my humiliation.”
A choice is required between world’s way & religion’s way. A choice is made involving a yielding to God. Yielding is followed by despair & suffering which focused for Rebecca on her sense of unworthiness & unclean-ness. The movement is from unworthiness, inadequacy & uncleanness to purification & acceptance. She described herself as a branch from the wild olive, grafted onto a good olive tree. She gained an identity & a morally upright, religiously devout family among whom were some of the most prominent & well-respected of the city.
The resolution of inner conflict was accompanied by new certainty & inner security which released energy & power; it also led to outer conflict. [Her mother’s desire that] Rebecca teach dance, music, & embroidery [conflicted] with Quaker’s avoiding frivolities like dancing & singing. “The more [I turned] my back on those things which … I greatly delighted in, the more strength increased”; she was thus able to stand up to family & friends.
In meeting she often felt that she was being required to rise and speak, yet she was afraid of “marring the Lord’s work.” [It took much suffering, but finally] “I stood up in much fear and trembling and expressed a few sentences very brokenly. I returned home with the promised reward of peace.” To stand up and speak was known to be the 1st step toward becoming a “public” friend. Her frequent warnings to herself against self-exaltation suggests that she felt [how attractive] the prospect was. Such a challenging, demanding life was also frightening.
She resolved her dilemma by experiencing it as a submission to God; she wasn’t claiming any power for herself. As she grew more confident in the minister role, Rebecca became an active leader in her meetings, monthly & yearly. She journeyed in ministry to Great Britain & Ireland from 1784-1788; the journey was an experience of deep dependence on the guiding, sustaining power of God.
She was able to move forward because God is there. She “took up the cross” through submission to the Spirit’s work & absolute trust in the inner Voice. [She gained] access to an inner power which overcomes fears, doubts & external opposition, which distinguishes right from wrong, which comforts & sustains. She learned to act as moral agent in control of her own life. She saw herself as weak & dependent; strength belonged to God. Divinity authority & power are located within the woman minister. There is amazing potential for the woman to claim dynamic power, agency & authority; Rebecca doesn’t make this step. Her self & God is firmly divided & often in opposition to one another. When the men of London YM suggested setting up a Women’s Meeting would give the body 2 heads, Rebecca replied that [Christ was the one head], & in Christ male & female are one.
Rebecca Jones was part of a Friends’ network who traveled together, advised, & supported each other in their ministry. [They led] the Quietist reformation of the 18th century. They attempted to renew the Spirit’s life, & rid Friends of worldliness. Rebecca’s story is similar to those of the 20 women ministers of the 18th century whose journals were published in 1875. Her story was held up as a model to Quaker women of the 19th century.
RACHEL HICKS 1789-1878—Rachel was a Quietist minister, a religious leader within the Hicksite branch of Friends. She witnessed the bitter infighting among Friends, the suffering of the Civil War, and the decline of Friends’ Meetings She saw her role as that of a faithful standard-bearer “inciting the people to the Divine Light within” and to the path of simple obedience. Raised strictly as a Friend, Rachel was guarded from the youthful misbehavior that plagued Rachel. [She writes of an 8 year-old memory: “I lay for several hours bemoaning my condition, until He who sees the heart was pleased to forgive, and speak comfortably to my soul … I have a great fear of offending Him from whom I could not hide my most secret thoughts.”
Her parents [taught] her a fear of dying unprepared. She feared wrong-doing & punishment, [rather than Rebecca’s fear of unworthiness]. [She took the side opposite her father in the Hicksite-Orthodox split], & said, “Never has [God] given me to see that … to obey His will inwardly revealed as the only way to the Kingdom of Heaven is to be given up.” At 19, she heard a voice: “If faithful … thou wilt … speak in my name to assemblies of people, & travel extensively.” She wrote: “This was an unexpected, unwelcome, [and impossible] message.”
She then lost her sense of God’s presence. For 20 years Rachel struggled with the call to minister, until the certainty of eternal damnation would be hers compelled her to rise and speak. “After I made a surrender … I oft felt His peace to flow in my heart as a river.” In Rachel Hicks’ journal “Thy will be done” is written on nearly every page; she was given many crosses to bear, [many deaths in the family, and journeys in the ministry].
If Rebecca Jones worried about worthiness, Rachel Hicks worried about obedience and wrath of God. Her problem was a wayward will, and the solution was submission to the will of God. Rachel’s ability to survive suffering and the subsequent return of life and power confirmed her faith in God and increased her strength and courage. 60 years after Rebecca Jones, Rachel Hicks was one of a dying breed of traditional traveling ministers, a lone prophet and part of the faithful remnant calling people back to faithful obedience.
Rachel discovered the same guiding and sustaining presence that Rebecca discovered. For Rachel, [the “preparation” for] speaking was always particularly difficult. “[None] can realize the humiliation of the creature [in] becoming an empty vessel, nor the wonder and admiration that fills the heart, when in this emptiness a passage of Scripture, or a sentence arises in the mind with a command, “Rise and utter it, and I will be with thee … words and matter have flowed as fast as I could give utterance.” For Rachel, [in her relationship with the Word of God], it is a question of ability and competence. The voice is not hers but God’s. Power and presence depend upon total surrender of self-will. Yet, despite her disclaimers, the Voice of God she speaks comes from deep within her and allows her to act with the power and presence of mature agency.
ELIZABETH GURNEY FRY 1780-1845—[Compared to the 1st 2 women mentioned], the intensity of the inner conflict between self and God has softened. [Her family background] contributed to a sense of inner worth. Her family were “gay” Friends who did not require strict adherence to the discipline of plain dress and speech. Elizabeth’s childhood was clouded by fears—of the dark, of the sea, and of death. She was often sick, and felt inferior to her elder sisters. She struggled with frivolity as being a waste of time, not as being a sin. She writes: “I don’t feel any real religion … I am a bubble, without reason, without beauty of mind or person; I am a fool.” An American “plain” Quaker made such an impression on her that she felt there is a God and thought she may have to become a “plain” Quaker. This path was confirmed a few months later.
Elizabeth was self-critical, yet her writing lacks intense shame or guilt. In fact: “It is wicked to despair of myself, it is the way to make me what I desire not to be.” The path of a Quaker minister is one she feels able to consider. It is an alluring possibility rather than a terrifying demand. Elizabeth’s identity as a Quaker emerged and was strengthened as she stood up to external pressure. She adopted the plain dress and she started a Sunday- school project for poor children on the family estate. She writes: “When I have followed … this Voice, yet I never have failed to feel content in doing so; even to be amply rewarded … The only true standard I can have to direct myself by is that which experience proves to give me the most happiness, by enabling me to be virtuous.”
She was forced to sharpen her powers of inner discernment, to make moral choices & to carry them out de-spite others’ opinions. Even at this stage of her life, new energy & power she felt from religious experience & commitment were expressed in works of direct charity. 18 years after reading the Bible to her “children,” she was reading the Bible to the women prisoners in Newgate. Yet, a diffidence & a sense of insecurity accompanied her throughout life & she was subject to bouts of fear & despair. Elizabeth noted, “I make myself appear almost weak by my fear of other people. I feel a difficulty in doing what I think right.” “I feel of myself no power for [vocal ministry] … yet when the feeling and power continue, so that I dare not omit it then what can I do?
She was recognized as a minister in 1811 at the age of 31; this work didn’t satisfy her need for purpose & fulfillment. She found in her work in Newgate prison, “a peace & prosperity … that I seldom remember to have done before. Each crisis was a new test of faith & trust. Her [favorite] text was “Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.” She learned to reach that place where God’s loving presence would carry her through. This ability enabled her to face the violence of prisoners & the obstructive authority of prison governors & politicians.
[Compared to the 1st 2 women mentioned], Elizabeth’s self & God are closer together—they belong to the same loving family. She was dependent on her Father, but not at the expense of her self or powers which her Father wished her to use well. Elizabeth’s beliefs maintained human nature’s sinfulness. A life of usefulness & active service then became a duty, a responsibility, & a way of showing love. Feeling undeserving set limits to her ability to act authoritatively in the world & prevented her from challenging authority structures. She chose the path of caring for the poor & imprisoned—a path which met with approval. She wrote: “Far be it from me … to persuade women to forsake their right province. My only desire is that they should fill that province well.”
LUCRETIA MOTT 1793-1880—Lucretia Mott fully lived into the radical power & agency that Quaker practice offers women. [As part of] the independent, close-knit community of Quaker whalers on Nantucket, she had a sense of self-worth & identity, & models of strong independent women. [When faced with injustice], she proclaimed, “The injustice … was apparent; I resolved to claim for myself all that a fair Creator had bestowed.”
Her husband’s (James Mott) support was crucial to her work & ministry. The spiritual crisis which sharpened & deepened Lucretia’s religious experience & identity was after her little son’s death. She [didn’t] believe that her God could ever command acts of injustice & suffering. Suffering was from ignorance of God’s natural laws, not divine test or punishment. As she struggled with these issues & with grief, she experienced a deepened sense of God’s presence & loving power. She felt Spirit moving within her, propelling her to speak. The foundation for Lucretia’s activism was religious experience. [When she spoke, it was] only as the Spirit gave her words.
Lucretia feels able to consecrate herself to ministry, without need for external authority; she aligns her work with God. Self & God have a mutual, non-hierarchical relationship. The disappearance of the split between self & God is mirrored in harmony between divine & natural, & in equality between men & women. There isn’t just a knowledge of ethical principles, but a felt ethical presence & power guiding & pushing toward action. How was Lucretia, [how can we] overcome inner separation of self & God? 1st, strong belief in self. 2nd, [the Hicksite-Orthodox split] forced the Society to divide along theological grounds. Lucretia was free to develop understanding of Inner Light outside traditional Christian theology; she was able to reject the doctrine of human depravity.
Elizabeth Fry was unable to claim divine power for herself and was only able to assert human equality on grounds of all people being sinners before God. [While Elizabeth claimed] women’s power and authority only within the women’s sphere, Lucretia claimed it within the male sphere as well. When self and God are allied, the self can claim an inner authority, an inner truth, from which to oppose both secular and religious authority.
Lucretia’s struggle centered around an outer conflict between self-God and structures of injustice. “Too many of our sex are insensible of their wrongs, and incapable of fully appreciating the blessings of freedom.” Opposition and accusations from the authorities within the yearly meeting hurt her deeply. She stayed with the Quaker fold even though few could follow her radical understanding and experience of the Quaker faith. The power of her ministry and leadership was widely respected.
Lucretia’s path was the discovery of a moral agency. Her path led to suffering and often went against her wishes for security and comfort. The life of moral agency did not require self-mortification and denial. Willingness has replaced submission. The will of God is an inner divine force for truth and righteousness with which we can choose to align our lives and our actions, to embody power and presence in our work for love and justice.
This examination of the psychological and spiritual development of 4 Quaker women ministers has shown a process of psychological growth through inner and outer conflict to resolution in a life of active engagement. Important parts of the process for these women included: defining identity in relation to family; discovering a public voice to speak the truth; claiming a vocation which gave meaning to their own experience.
The extent to which these women claimed their own dynamic power depended on their understanding of the relationship between self and God. Their understanding and experience of this relationship depended upon their childhood experience, social & historical location, & theological discourse. The amount of power & authority they located in God or self shaped their relationship to external authority. The personal journeys of these 4 women & the conflicts they encountered mirrored those of corporate religious bodies of which they were part. Rebecca’s witness grew out of discipline & withdrawal from the world, like other 18th century Friends. The lives of Rachel Hicks, Elizabeth Fry & Lucretia Mott reflect different answers to the tensions & conflicts present within Quaker theology & practice which divided Quaker communities in the 19th century. They represent, respectively, Conservative, Evangelical, & Liberal emphases which emerged in the 19th century.
As a Quaker woman, I am proud to stand in such a tradition. I am challenged to look within, to find Truth in my own experience, to live life [from my depths]. I am challenged to act with power and presence in my world —doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with my God.
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About the Author—Born a Friend, Eleanore P. Mather graduated from Westtown School & from Mt Holyoke College. She has been editor of Pendle Hill Pamphlets. Though the present pamphlet points out cultural & social evidences of Quakerism in Edward Hicks’ painting, its special emphasis is on his religion's inward aspect.
What is a Primitive Quaker?—Edward Hicks (1780-1849) is now recognized as America’s foremost primitive painter, & his Peaceable Kingdoms & other works are sought after by museums nationwide. Hicks served his Newtown meeting as preacher, minister, committee member, as well as sweeping & laying fires before meeting. He applied the term “primitive” to early Christians and to early Quakers. Wrote Hicks: “Under the influence of this blessed spirit my soul finds a sweet union with all God’s children in their devotional exercises, whether . . . Protestant. . . Roman. . . Hindoo. . . or [Native American].” Divine revelation might be a few broken words spoken by an uneducated man, woman, or child. It was the work of George Fox to organize these fervent seekers into a form of church government which might serve as a balance to the extreme individualism of the faith.
Edward Hicks Becomes a Preacher—Edward Hicks wasn’t born Quaker; he became one at 23. His parents were Tories & Episcopalians. With British defeat came impoverishment for Hicks’ father & his 3 children. Elizabeth & David Twining fostered Edward for a decade; he looked back on this time wistfully. Isaac wanted a law education for his son, but settled for apprenticeship in a coach painter’s shop. His master also ran an inn. Hicks wrote: “Licentious lewdness was much more a besetting sin, & my preservation from ruin in this way appeared a miracle, for I certainly indulged in lewd conversation.” He joined Middletown meeting in spring 1803; neither his spiritual or financial progress was smooth. “I went staggering along, still keeping my neighbors faults in the wallet’s front end, & my own behind my back.” A female Friend influenced him “to talk less pray more.”
[Hicks’ first vocal ministry] was “but a few words that I could utter, & on taking my seat, I wept almost aloud.” [He was filled with love & concern for everyone for 2 or 3 weeks afterward]. “I not only borrowed money but [also] sentiments and language; hence I passed, like too many others, for more than I was worth.” He was officially recorded a minister at Middletown in 1812. In 1815 he helped found Newtown Preparative Meeting, which was to be his lifelong meeting.
Edward Hicks was an outstanding traveling minister in the Friends missionary work that lasted well into the 2nd half of the 19th century, traveling to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Long Island, New York, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana and Canada at his own expense. He had a gift for preaching at funerals, and also used his speaking talents against the hypocritical and self-righteous, against the lukewarm and the libertine.
Like so many old-time Quakers he was a man of one message. His Noah’s Ark promises the serenity of a new and better order within. “Public Friends” experienced: primitive innocence; juvenile frivolity; acceptance of the Light after inner struggle; public testimony in meeting; adoption of plain dress, and usually a sense of social concern. He was not a concerned abolitionist or pacifist, but perhaps his art, a translation of spirit into action, took the place of the more specific social concerns of his generation.
The Preacher Becomes an Artist—Several years after his move to Newtown Edward Hicks tried farming failed miserably; he turned back to painting. It is significant that he was a craftsman before he was an artist. [The usefulness of his painting made his occupation more acceptable]. He referred to his art in an apologetic parenthesis as “being the only business he was able to follow.” Hostility to art in the early years of the republic was not confined to Quakers, or Puritans. If his neighbors disapproved of painting, at least they did not laugh at his. Alice Ford said: “His lack of opportunity [for training] is our good fortune; his well spring of genius was spirit.”
[In his painting craft, he learned to grind his own colors. He painted coaches, houses sign posts to tavern signs. He used flat colors, bold and decorative outlines, and a casual approach to proportion and perspective]. The product is what Holder Cahill has defined as “folk art.” Cahill writes: “There is no doubt that these works have technical deficiencies from the academic and naturalistic point of view. The folk artist tried to set down not so much what they saw as what they knew and felt.”
His work is startlingly original, though he used time-worn themes, and borrowed other people’s figures. With all his originality he still reveals the practical tradition of a craft rather than the academic tradition of formal art. [The Residence of David Twining (1787)] reflects the world of an American Quaker, with something in the mood and technique suggesting a more remote age; there is even a touch of the Holy Family about it all.
The Folk Artist and His Community—When Edward Hicks joined the Society of Friends he acquired not only a religion but a community. He cherished this adopted world, but he did not always get along with it; Edward was not a peaceable Quaker. He berated them about their un-Quakerly behavior, higher education, and even abolition as a political cause of factions and distraction from the inward life. He even sharply criticized Lucretia Mott. [Even] he wrote: “I certainly have no merit, and am really astonished that such a poor creature as I have always been, should ever have attained to such a standing in Society, and had so many good friends.” With his immediate family he was warm and tender.
Though he was obstinate, prejudiced, and contentious his faith was unswerving, and he became the voice of Bucks County Quakerism. His coaches and sleighs sped over its thoroughfares; his signposts directed travelers on their way; his tavern signs offered them refreshment; his painted furniture and easel pictures adorned their parlors. Friends and non-Friends alike flocked to hear his preaching. Edward Hicks might be estranged from his own time, but not from his own people. He had his family, his church, his village, and his county, all interwoven to form a solid social fabric which the modern [city-dweller] can scarcely comprehend.
The Kingdom of Conflict—Using Isaiah 11:6-9 as a text, Edward Hicks painted numerous sermons on the peaceable kingdom they describe. There are at least 3 ways in which these paintings relate to the religious beliefs of the artist: traditional, organizational, and inward. The traditional Quaker ideal of peace between nations was probably a strong fact in his original choice of the subject. Penn’s treaty with the Indians, borrowed from an earlier Quaker artist appears in most of the Kingdoms. A strong motivation for some of the Kingdoms was organizational, in particular the conflict that led to the great Separation of 1827.
Near the end of the 18th century, Philadelphia meetings tended to lay increasing stress on the outward atonement of the historical Christ and on the Scriptures. Opposing this trend was Elias Hicks, Edward’s cousin. His emphasis on Quakerism’s mystical side caused concern to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting elders. Country Friends embraced Elias, & because Edward considered the Orthodox trend as encroaching on primitive Quakerism, and because he was a great admirer of Elias, it was inevitable that he should be drawn into the controversy.
The Orthodox movement was led by a clerk and a former clerk of the Yearly Meeting. They tried to write a creed, and take rights away from the monthly meetings; it was a conflict between ministers and elders, between inspiration and authority. Orthodoxy prevailed, and Elias was barred from preaching in the Philadelphia area. The followers of Hicks withdrew. Both sides believed they were defending the true faith.
Around 1820 he produced his first Peaceable Kingdom. [In the left background was a representation of Penn’s treaty with the Indians. In the right foreground was a group] consisting of a child with its arm around a lion’s neck, a steer, lamb & wolf, leopard & kid. As the decade progressed Hicks painted many variants of this simple scene. The Separation of 1827 change the background of the painting from Penn to a pyramid of Quakers, [Fox, Penn, and Barclay at the top, George Washington and Elias Hicks at the bottom] bearing a banner.
In an early type of Peaceable Kingdom (1820), Hicks borrowed the composition from Richard Westall. To it he added Penn’s treaty with the Indians; some of them have a lettered border with a paraphrase of the verses. The Separation of 1827 created Hicksites and Orthodox, and changed the composition of the Peaceable Kingdoms. The animals turn sullen & defiant. Penn’s treaty gave way to a pyramid of “Quakers Bearing Banners,” representing the Hicksites. George Washington & Elias Hicks, cousin to Edward stands in the forefront. Linking the substantial cloud of witnesses to the Light of Christ with a banner, its inscription associated with the birth of the historical Christ, is surely in answer to the Orthodox charge of heresy. Edward said of Jonathan Evans that he was “too much like myself, malignant and bitter toward his enemies. I consider him as honest as Saul of Tarsus. When Jesus Christ was revealed in him, Jonathan Evans became a changed man.”
The Inward Kingdom—In likening his old opponent Jonathan Evans, to the lion and the ox, Edward Hicks touched on the third and most significant aspect of the Peaceable Kingdom, the inward one. As the years went on, his paintings became spiritual landscapes peopled with vices and virtues of mankind in animal form. The soul he was most interested in saving was his own. Taken in toto the Kingdom series is a record of his spiritual growth, his recurrent struggles and the search for harmony in reconciliation with himself. He writes: “The lamb, the kid, the cow, and the ox are emblems of good men and women, while the wolf, leopard, bear, and lion are figures of the wicked.” The virtuous kid tends to decrease in size as his brilliant contrast, the sanguine leopard, increases.
The leopard starts out with only head and paws in the Westall composition. In the Kingdom with Quakers bearing Banners he stretches defiantly at full length. He always retains some element of interest, if only with his eyes. There is a peculiar identification of the artist with these great golden cats. [Their tails seems to take the place of] the serpent, which Hicks does not feature. Hicks puts his focus on the yoking of the lion and the fatling together by the little child, until the lion and the leopard captured the composition. To Hicks: “The leopard is the most subtle, cruel, restless creature, and at the same time the most beautiful of all the carnivorous animal of cat kind . . . men and women of this class in the sinful state, are not to be depended upon.” Hicks shared the Quaker belief that the leopard’s beauty belonged in the jungle, and the hope that it stayed there. For poor Edward the artist the leopard would not stay in the jungle. The leopard was a part of him, and how significant a part is suggested by the dominance and variety of its position in the paintings.
The lion evolves from looking like a patient dog submitting to caresses of an importunate child. In the Separation's Kingdoms, his eyes harden & glitter & he shows a choleric humor. In the middle period Kingdoms the lion’s eyes become fearful & sorrowful. In a Middle Period Kingdom painting (1830-40), Penn & his Indians return. The lion sits next to the ox. With the middle period Kingdoms Hicks introduced all the prophecy's figures, & creates a disturbed energy. We have left the world of outer conflict & have entered the artist's troubled soul. Beside the lion stands his great alter ego, the ox, perhaps representing the grave, kindly elder. The ox is the only “good” animal to achieve any prominence in these compositions. A portrait of Hicks at his easel shows an alert, rugged, pugnacious face, spectacles pushed back on forehead, brush & palette in hand, a Bible open beside him.
The Late Kingdom paintings (1844) show certain animals reaching their zenith, particularly the leopard and the ox. The little child is trying to yoke the young lion, the calf, and the fatling together with a tasseled cord. There is a shifting, as if someone had entered or left the group. The lion has become a mere observer. The leopard’s eyes are still piercing us with a question—or an answer. We are not quite sure.
Edward Hicks died on August 23, 1849. The last Kingdom was painted for his favorite daughter, Elizabeth. The trees in the background shimmer in a golden autumnal twilight. The wolf rises and appears to be listening. The little child has finally yoked the young lion with the calf and the fatling, and now marches them off, leaving the leopard to flow across the foreground like a skein of silk. Elizabeth encouraged him writing: “I have a firm faith thy dedication to the candle of Truth will not and cannot be lost. I believe that thou hast been an instrument to sow seed that has taken root in different parts of the vineyard, and will bear a rich harvest . . .”
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238. Lawrie Tatum, Indian Agent (1822-1900): Quaker Values & Hard Choices (by Robert Hixson; 1981)
About the Author—Born in Boulder, Colorado in 1943, Bob Hixson graduated from the Univ. of CO, worked in the Peace Corp in West Africa, & taught elementary grades in Philadelphia & Vermont. With a Master of Science degree in natural resources conservation from Cornell, he began writing & editing in Vermont. Bob is particularly interested in exploring Quaker history to discover how principles can be applied to life situations.
[Sections from original pamphlet rearranged]
[History of Kiowas and Comanches]—Before Spanish settlement in the New World the Comanches had been an obscure Shoshonean tribe living in the central Rockies. Their name for themselves was Nermernuh (The People). The Kiowas [or Kwu’da] too started in the mountains and moved out onto the plains. With the acquisition of horses, [both tribes] transformed into a mounted military aristocracy. With the abundance of buffalo came the freedom to pursue one of their most honored traditions—warfare. Raiding, most often at night with a full moon, was the means by which a man achieved wealth and prestige.
The revolutionary effect horses had on the Kiowas and Comanches had a devastating effect on the other Indian tribes, who could not withstand the Kiowa-Comanches alliance after 1790. The Kiowas and Comanches permanently altered the demography of the Southwest, blocking and then containing Spanish colonization. The Spanish established lucrative trade with them in the spoils of raids into other regions. Particularly cruel was the trading and ransoming of Anglo and Mexican captives carried off in raids.
Just as the ‘Comanche barrier’ halted Spanish & Mexican colonization from the west & south, it equally blunted Anglo settlement from the east. The settlers, & even U.S. troops sent to the region were no match for the Indians, who had superior horsemanship, terrain knowledge, superior numbers, bolder tactics, better mobility, & more appropriate weapons. The theft of livestock was also devastating. The army and the Texas Rangers learned from earlier errors and were becoming more effective. General Sherman, Civil War hero said: “The more we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed next year. They all have to be killed or maintained as paupers.”
[Peace commission and Lawrie Tatum]—In 1867, a great peace commission that included General Sherman and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Nathaniel G. Taylor met at Bent Forks on the Missouri River to study the problem and negotiate treaties. Their report suggested that missionary groups become more involved in working with the Indians. Bishop Henry Whipple of Minnesota supported the recommendation and various Quaker groups began cooperating with him. When the Quakers protested military supervision of the Indian Bureau, President Grant accepted their advice and asked for names. The Quakers were given the superintendency of the Indian Bureau, and recommended Lawrie Tatum, who had moral and religious uprightness, concern for humane treatment, interest in education and sound business judgment, as one of their agents.
So, in the Spring of 1869, a 47 year-old Quaker named Lawrie Tatum left his Springdale, Iowa farm to participate in what Quakers called a “holy experiment”; he was away from his farm for 4 years. It was to take him to the center of a confrontation between friendly persuasion and armed might, between distant idealism and urgent pragmatism. [The question was]: Can Quakers be as effective at policy-making as in policy-protesting?
Still, Tatum was a farmer, not an administrator. Tatum wrote: “I was living on a farm in Iowa and knew nothing about being nominated for an Indian agent until I saw my name in a newspaper … I knew little of the duties and responsibilities devolving upon an Indian agent. After considering the subject as best I could in the fear of God, and wishing to be obedient to Him, it seemed right to accept the appointment.”
In May 1869, Tatum & other Quaker Indian agents left home & began traveling west to their agencies; [Tatum traveled nearly 450 miles from eastern Iowa to Junction City KS, then 350 miles south & a little west to Fort Sill in southwestern OK]. Fort Sill was established in 1869. Within Tatum’s 5,000 mile² jurisdiction were about 500 Apache & 1,200 members of the Affiliated Bands (Caddoes, Wichitas, Kuchies, Wacos, & others). Tatum’s main responsibility was pacification & containment of 1,900 Kiowas, & 2,500 Comanches.
[Tatum, Kiowas and Comanches: 1st 2 Years]—When Lawrie Tatum arrived to take charge of the agency, he found ambitious projects, barely begun. He started building a new agency building on higher ground, a schoolhouse, [residences] for a physician, carpenter, and other employees, bought a steam engine and fixtures for a sawmill and a shingle machine, and small millstones for grinding corn. Tatum had an unshakable belief in the value of Indians as human beings worthy of concern, charity, and love. [The times were such that] they could strive to preserve the human rights of the Indian, but they could not comprehend preserving the Indians’ culture.
Opposing Tatum’s efforts was the Kiowa chief Satana, [who did not like corn, and saw no point in being “civilized” when the] “wild” Indians were treated better and rewarded more, [in a misguided attempt to get them to stop raiding and taking captives]. Tatum’s answer to all these policies was simply to end them. Even though he was responsible for them, several hundred Kiowa and 2/3 of the Comanche lived wild and free. [Those on the reservation had to tolerate a lack of meat, coffee and sugar, and musty cornmeal].
In the fall of 1869, Tatum returned to the Midwest to buy farm machinery, visit with Quakers, and rejoin his family; his wife and youngest child returned to Ft. Sill with him. [A major obstacle to getting the Indians to follow “the white man’s road,” was the white’s lack of understanding that there was no central authority among the Comanche and Kiowa tribes to impose a decision on the whole tribe. In late May and mid-June the Quahada band of Comanche raided Ft. Sill and the agency killing 3 men. In late June Tatum wrote: “I called the Friends together who were working for the government, and told them that … I expected to remain, but wished them to use their own judgment as to remaining there or returning to the states”; only the teachers stayed with Tatum.
He & Colonel Grierson agreed “that it wouldn’t be right to let them go without punishment after such atrocities committed, with a hope that their rations be increased. My fervent desire was to be supplied heavenly wisdom sufficient for [responsibilities] devolving upon me.” On July 1 Tatum was made responsible for the commissary stores, including over 4,000 head of cattle; Mary Tatum & the other Quaker employees left 4 days later.
When the Kiowa came, Tatum writes: “Their plan was to get their pay then (for the captives) & again when they were brought. I told them that I should give them nothing at that time, & they needn't come to me again for their rations until the captives were brought to me … While we were in council the Indians had their guns, bows, & arrows lying at their sides, which could be seized in an instant … I thought they were doing it to intimidate the colonel & myself… My plan of withholding rations from a tribe or band that had white captives until they were delivered was new & experimental … I thought it was right, & therefore the thing to do… it worked grandly.”
Among the captives was one Temple Friend, who had been with the Indians for several years & had forgotten his original name & could speak only Comanche. When his grandfather spoke his name & his sister’s name, he recognized them. The release of captives also was emotionally difficult for the Indians. The Kiowa & Comanche were very egalitarian people who admired toughness & bravery wherever they found it. Quanah Parker, son of an Indian & a white captive, was one of the Comanche’s greatest & most warlike chiefs. One Indian told Tatum he had “the strongest medicine for recovering captives” of any agent. Lawrie Tatum was responsible for 26 women & children being released to their people. It was the achievement of which he was most proud.
[Other problems arose]. Seeking to trust the Indians, Tatum left provisions unguarded, and they were stolen. Most Kiowa and Comanche ignored appeals to come onto the reservation. One chief told Tatum that if Washington did not want young men raiding in Texas, Washington should remove Texas where the young men wouldn’t find it. The situation was tragically clear. As long as game was plentiful and the Indians could obtain guns and ammunition from traders, they could not be kept on the reservation and from raiding without force.
Superintendent Hoag and other Quaker officials visited, and seemed well satisfied with the way the agency was managed. Tatum reported on an agent meeting in Lawrence, KS that: “Agents were encouraged to use every effort to Christianize and civilize the Indians on the peaceable principles of the gospel, and to deal with them honestly, firmly, and lovingly … This, I believe, was the wish and intent of every agent.”
[Tatum, Kiowas & Comanches: 2nd 2 Years & Conclusion]—With the return of spring in 1871, Indian ponies grew sleek & young warriors restless. Emboldened by lack of punishment [resulting from Quaker principles, which didn't permit calling in troops], the Kiowa & Comanche in 1871 intensified Texas raids. [The whites felt panic & outrage, while the Kiowa & Comanche felt exhilaration & excitement that normally came with war.
[After a raid on a party right behind his own], General Sherman ordered Colonel Ranald McKenzie to meet him at Ft. Sill. Sherman arrived at the agency on May 23; his mood was grim. Tatum no longer doubted force would be necessary if the Indians were to cease raiding. Sanctioning the use of troops to bring the Kiowa & Comanche under control brought Tatum into direct conflict with his Quaker supervisors. [Tatum had gone] among the Indian lovingly, sincerely, patiently, & trusting in God’s goodness & wisdom—still they raided.
[The Kiowa chiefs Satana, Eagle Heart, Big Tree, Big Bow, and 1st Bear (Satank) came to the agency]. Satana made a speech claiming credit for the raid that killed 7 men on a mule train. Tatum went to Colonel Grierson and requested the arrest of the chiefs. A general melee ensued; there was panic, disorder and one Indian killed. 3 days later Colonel McKenzie arrived and took 3 of the chiefs—Satana, Satank, and Big Tree—away in chains. [Satank managed to get his handcuffs off and attacked the soldiers, forcing them to kill him]. He knew the old ways were dying, and he did not wish to live the new. He died with his honor intact. [The remaining 2 chiefs were sentenced to hang, but the Quakers got the sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Tatum wrote: “It was right to have them arrested, & I see nothing to make me feel doubtful about it … He whom I endeavor to serve has, I believe, enlightened my understanding in times of need.” He later wrote: “The Kiowa & Quahadas are unmanageable by me … Nothing less than military authority, & perhaps some punishment by troops, will bring them into subjection as to make the services of a civil agent of benefit to them.”
In August and September of 1872, the Quaker Indian officials convened 2 large intertribal councils, hoping the influence of the “civilized” tribes could be brought to bear on the Kiowa and Comanche. Most of the Kiowa and Comanche stayed away; those that came only wanted to demand their chiefs back. Tatum was adamant that Satana and Big Tree not be released. [While the Friends Indian Committee felt very hopeful about the release of the chiefs, Tatum did not believe their promises, based on past experience. Satana “could not keep the other Indians from raiding if he wished to, and he would not do so if he could.”
When Quakers distant from the reservation continued to work for the chiefs’ release over his objections, Tatum resigned effective March 1873. The following questions that have troubled Quakers throughout their history [were confronted by Tatum as by few other Quakers]: Can military force by justified if the only alternative appears to be even more bloodshed and violence? And if not, then what methods should Quakers adopt to prevent war-like people from harming others and themselves? Does the Quaker insistence on principle that makes for good conscientious objectors, make for ineffective leaders and decision-makers? What value are Quaker ideals if they cannot be realized in society at large?
The Kiowa & Comanche were predestined to be almost totally unreceptive to friendly persuasion & example; [meekness was weakness; no raiding was surrender. Lawrie Tatum sought to reconcile idealism & pragmatism, but when a choice had to be made he chose pragmatism. Tatum’s Quaker successor, James H. Haworth was instructed not to countenance the use of military force; in 4 years he had no better luck than Tatum. Peace Policy, the “holy experiment,” had been a failure. With each battle or raid, the Indians grew weaker & the whites stronger. Defeated militarily, the last Indian bands, led by Quanah Parker, came to the reservation in June 1875.
The tasks that Tatum “failed” at almost no human being could have accomplished, & Lawrie Tatum was just an Iowa farmer armed with good intentions & an unshakable determination to what was right. [Kiowa, Comanche, & non-Indian respected him & were sorry to seem him go. “I can see that the public service is to be the loser by any change, however worthy may be your successor.” These Indians knew courage when they saw it.
Although he never again became an Indian agent, Tatum remained interested in Indians and their welfare the rest of his life. [Both he and the Indians] were trapped in their own times and values and never really understood the depth of the differences between his culture and theirs. Lawrie was a sincere, deeply religious, practical man made strong and purposeful by the moral imperatives of his faith. To all difficulty and adversity he always had but one answer. “I thought it was right—and therefore the thing to do.”
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