Quaker History
QUAKER HISTORY
[About the Author]—Geoffrey Fillingham Nuttall (1911 – 2007) was a Congregational minister & ecclesiastical historian. Nuttall was born in North Wales, the general practitioner's son. He was educated at Bootham School, a Quaker School in York, Balliol College & Mansfield College, Oxford. He was ordained to Congregational ministry in 1938. In 1943, he started theological training, 1st at the Quaker study center at Woodbrooke, Birmingham, where he delivered 6 lectures covered in this pamphlet. His area of academic interest was 17th-century ecclesiastical history. He married Mary Powley in 1944, having met her while he was at Woodbrooke.
Foreword—Pendle Hill's interest in this publication is that Geoffrey Nuttall's presentation is a valuable addition to the history of Society of Friends, calling attention as it does to the wave of intense feeling upon which Quakerism was launched. All great religious movements have been forged in the white heat of fervor & passion. Fortunate is that religion or sect which [necessarily] continues to exhibit some of its 1st warmth & enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm's old usage was as possession by deity with prophetic or poetic frenzy. In the Puritan mind there was bound to gather about the Quaker movement a fringe of eccentric prophets who justified their worst predictions. [Opposite the Puritan's fears was the enthusiasm that] "was piercing & very powerful so that earth shook before him ... the stout-hearted were made to bow ... & bend before the Lord." In order to avoid apprehending the Inward Light so as to remove all standards & control, church government was instituted which placed group vision of the Truth above individual views, but still preserved individual rights. Too strict a discipline that cru-shes enthusiasm is more serious than permitting too much toleration of unrestrained feeling. William Penn disclaimed "vain whimsies & idle intoxications, professing our revelation to be a solid & necessary discovery from the Lord [for our daily spiritual health]." The Society of Friends exists today because its more moderate element prevailed without altogether extinguishing the flame of the Spirit. HOWARD H. BRINTON
Preface—This little book represents the substance of 6 lectures delivered in 1945 at Woodbrooke in Birmingham, which were based on conclusions drawn from calendaring, annotating and indexing early Friends' letters. There is a magnificent collection of Quaker and anti-Quaker tracts housed at Woodbrooke. In William C. Braithwaite's The Beginnings of Quakerism, instances of [extravagant enthusiasm] were minimized or disregarded. There is still room for a study of [the place of] enthusiasm in early Quakerism.
The period used for illustration is almost solely the very earliest period (1652-1656), ending with Nayler's tragic "fall." The 4 chosen here as representatives of 4 aspects of enthusiasm were all gone before Fox married Margaret Fell (1659). The evidence given here is contemporary letters written by men who at the time shared leadership with Fox, [written in the heat of the event's moment, as opposed to] Fox's writing after the events, recollected in tranquillity. At present sensible men put Christian enthusiasm out favor. Many Protestant would accept without a qualm that religious experience may be said to be secondary, and controlled by orthodoxy and the test of virtue. I believe that a recovery of personal religious experience as our faith's center is the main thing needed at present in our theology, [as I have written in 2 of my books).
Extravagances, exaggerations and abnormalities have accompanied Christian enthusiasm, and brought it into disrepute. Enthusiasms should not be dismissed from serious consideration simply because extravagances have often marred it. Not being a member of the Society of Friends, may have made it easier for me to present Quaker illustrations with the desirable detachment. Periodic revival of devotion results in Catholicism in establishing new order; in Protestantism new sects result. There is urgent need for summary to be made of such movements, of their problems and historical circumstances which favored such revivals. Some knowledge of psychology is needed, but this interest needs to be kept subservient to the religious. I am grateful to Henry Cadbury and the directors of Pendle Hill for making the publication of this pamphlet, and for Henry Brinton's Foreword.
1
CHAPTER I Introduction—It is the experiences of the 1st missionaries, like Audland, Huberthorne, Whitehead, Holmes, in total 70 ministers "sent abroade out of [the] north Countryes," which form our material. Quakerism was very much a strongly missionary and proselytizing force in its beginnings. Today there is a timidity, often an explicit disapproval of proselytizing, growing out a sense of spiritual matters' delicate nature. In those 1st days Friends were sure that they had been given something to say which concerned every man. From 1654, there was a definite missionary campaign to cover the whole of England and Wales. The campaign went on to Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man, and further yet across the Atlantic.
Given the "70" figure, Fox likely had in mind the 70 who were sent out by Jesus. It is a mistake to think of them as uneducated or poor; at least 30 of them were yeomen, "statesmen" or husbandmen; 5 Ernest Taylor calls gentlemen, 4 were schoolmasters; & 2 others professional men, as well as 8 women. At least 20 have received recognition as men national importance [i.e. were included in the Dictionary of National Biography]. 2 areas stand out as sources of the 70. West Central England & an area in southern Yorkshire, especially around Balby. 3 of those featured here come from near Balby; the forth was from Kendal in West Central England.
["News Letters" to Margaret Fell]—All most all of the 70 wrote long descriptive letters to Margaret Fell of Swarthmore Hall, [near the shore of the Irish Sea and Morecambe Bay]. These letters were preserved and collected by Margaret, and provide historians with an unusually good and extensive contemporary source. These letters are not in any order, by author or date. In the 1st 8 years, in the Swarthmore Collection, there are approximately 700 letters, some very long, from 155 correspondents. The lecture material here comes largely from the 1st half of those 8 years. Most were addressed to Margaret, the wife of Judge Thomas Fell (also justice of the peace). Her home, Swarthmore Hall was used as a kind of holiday home and intelligence center.
Judge Fell, as a non-Quaker, was always ready to stand between Friends & their persecutors. Margaret often copied & forwarded letters to other Friends, thus providing them with news & support. Margaret was a personality with initiative & endless courage. Her high social position gave her poise & balance & breadth of out-look; it never stood in the way of fidelity to the demands of unconventional truth. [Her 1st encounter with Fox led to her oft-quoted words]: "We are all thieves; we have taken the Scriptures in words & know nothing of them in ourselves." Sentencing led to her words: " Although I am out of the King's protection, yet I am not out of the Protection of Almighty God." When Friends withdrawing from the world wore only gray & sober clothes, Margaret reminded Friends there was still a place in God's Providence for the changeable colors of the hills.
Margaret Feel's most important contribution was the open hospitality of her home & her warm & continuing personal interest in all her guests. Miles Halhead, responsible for Devon & Cornwall describes her home as a place "where Lambs & Babes, & Children of Light will be gathered together to wait upon my Name. [They will be well-fed & refreshed] ... that above all Families of the Earth I may rejoice to do them good ... The Lord was very good to that Family in feeding them the Dew of Heaven, and the sweet incomes of his Love, according to his promise. The author was in an abnormal, highly wrought condition; the passage breathes "enthusiasm."
[Enthusiasm's Double Meaning]—This word has come to mean little more than radiant eagerness & delight. Early Friends believed the Spirit of God through Christ was with them, & in them, just as much as with 1st Christians, a present guide, blessing, & sustainer in their day. Others thought this absurd. Henry More said: "Enthusiasm is nothing else but a misconceit of being inspired." He saw enthusiasm as a threat to Christianity. In response to such assertions, George Whitehead wrote Enthusiasm above Atheism: Divine Inspiration & Immediate Illumination Asserted. This book argued that early Friends were enthusiasts in both senses of the word, both radiant eagerness & immediate divine inspiration. Within them wasn't only inner light shining, there was also inner flame burning. Spurious enthusiasm was a danger in the absence of checks or touchstones. They had a problem, & it is no surprise they didn't always solve it. In the end they solved it; they avoided pitfalls which led the Ranters into disgrace. Although it's their [success that] inspires, we may learn more from their failures.
CHAPTER II Moral Enthusiasm: Thomas Aldam—The force of the word testimony in the Society of Friends' usage is that it is a witness because it issues from conviction. From its beginnings it has been keenly concerned to bear witness to the ethical demands of Christianity, and to bear witness against the world's failure to accept them. There were also testimonies to past Friends who had [born faithful, valiant witness, never shrank] "whatever Storm or Tempest came, but followed Christ Jesus his Captain through sufferings patiently."
Witnessing, standing steadfast, and willingness to suffer, is highly characteristic of early Friends, like the little children at Reading who went and kept up the meeting when all the grown-ups had been imprisoned, or others who would go and meet in the ruins of their meetinghouse. [This spirit stems from] moral enthusiasm. Their conviction that God's Spirit was with them enabled them to be sure of what was right and what was wrong, and to stand by the right and cry out against the wrong whatever the consequences.
2
Thomas Aldam came from Warmsworth, near Doncaster, & was no longer young when Fox came to that [country]; he was "convinced" in 1651. His son writes: "Thomas Aldam ... had been a follower of Priests & Teachers of the times; [they didn't have what] could satisfie his hungering, thirsting Soul, [so he] became separate from them; not yet knowing where to [find what] ... he had been seeking after. He was in a desolate land, till [the Lord sent] his faithful Servant & Minister ... G.F. into our Country ... Many there were which gladly received his Testimony, & were made living Witnesses of God's Salvation, (amongst which my Father was one) ... It wrought powerfully in them ... raising them up to bear a living Testimony, to what God had made known unto them."
Thomas Aldam's letters are full of his experiences & his concern for the testimony that he is called to bear against the world's wickedness. Fox, who is known for "answering that of God in everyone," also said, "Spare no deceit, lay sword upon it, ... [God]: I arise, to trample & thunder deceit." Thomas was on watch for wrong things, & was determined to cry out as soon as they were discovered. In his ethical concern he may be called the James of the "1st Publishers." His handwriting suggests a sort of invincibility; he left no margins on the page.
[Suffering Much for the Truth]—He suffered much imprisonment for going to Steeplehouses, bearing witness against Preachers for Hire, and lengthened his stay by condemning the Judge for partial Judgment. He was being constantly sued and distrained upon for tithes he refused to pay; he remained in prison 2½ years. [Excerpts from 3 of his letters follow]:
1. "I was moved to follow [Thomas Harrison, Knight & Judge] to the place where he came out of court, to speak to him, & warn him of being partial in judgment, ...& spoke to the rest of the lawyers ...I was made to tell him that their gifts ...was from law held up by the devil in them, & all oppression by them was of the devil ... I was moved to go to lawyers ... & to speak much out of judgment against them ... when he had done his vain repetition, I was moved to declare against the castle priest's hypocritical doctrine. ... I wrote gaolers about oppressions & vanity ... pride, tryanny, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness. [I offered to] clear it to them. I don't fear what man can do to me, but there do rest; I abide in the same place still."
2. "2 justices would have had me go forth of prison [on my good behavior]. If the door was set open, I might be free to go forth; I couldn't stand bound to such a thing as they called good behavior. They did make it a breach of the peace [to] speak truth. Another said he could prevail to get my freedom, If I would leave the priests alone. I was moved to exhort him, to drive him to his inward teacher; he fell into a rage & said I was mad."
3. "The gaoler was free to let 2 women Friends rest in a place in prison belonging to the town soldiers. I had the key, but the gaoler wanted to make lodging and profit of the room. She could have a room if she would pay for it. Mary Fisher said she wasn't chargeable to any and she had not where with to pay for a room. "Wherefore art thou in this room, and thy life trampling upon in the street? ... Cast out thy money, cast out thy purse, and what thou hast laid up in thy chest, and get thee hence; [I was to give away my money.] I was commanded to deliver the key to the gaoler, and to trust the Lord. I was called to go into [the general prison population]. I was with them till night. We were kept by the mighty power of God in the [general prison area] amongst the raging heathen. Rooms were [soon] provided, so we were placed and set free, and in our freedom we stand."
[Cromwell and Aldam's Visions]—To Fox Aldam wrote: "I'm often in spirit waiting at London at Oliver Cromwell's house... as if... in sackcloth & weeping over a seed ... in bonds in [Cromwell]. Aldam had faith in the Protector, & tenderness toward "that of God" in him, a faith that was probably strengthened when Cromwell ordered his release. This illustrates how visions came to early Friends. The passage foreshadows Aldam's actual behavior & visit, though he didn't wear sackcloth. Edward Burroughs & Francis Howgill wrote: Thomas Aldam hath been with Cromwell, & cleared his conscience to him. Cromwell's heart has hardened, & he can't believe."
Early Friends read in the Old Testament of strange behavior which prophets sometimes adopted as signs of the people's wickedness. In their literalness & I naïveté they modeled their behavior on the prophets, & felt called on to seek to persuade others by this method, even if they weren't understood & didn't succeed. Richard Sale of Chester writes: "My mouth was opened in much power, & my mourning habit was exceeding dreadful, so that [the well-dressed] were ashamed & those nearby were made to blush. I was made to take a leathern girdle, & sackcloth, sweet flowers in my right hand, & stinking weeds in my left, & be barefooted & bare-legged ... The heathen did set their dogs at me, but the creatures were subjected to thy power." Some Friends even went naked. Aldam seems never to have gone to such extremes; [but he acted with moral enthusiasm], a determination to show forth in picturesque fashion the condemnation of evil with which he felt himself burdened by the Lord.
3
[Dangers of Pharisaism, "Speaking Sharply," and Excess Moral Enthusiasm]—Those with keen moral concern may fall into Pharisaism, & become prejudiced against opponents, unwilling to understand & to appeal to the best in them. It is hard to see how language used towards hireling preachers, bad judges, & lawyers against whom they bore testimony, was likely to appeal to "that of God" in them. It is likely that Fox & others believed that the only way they could appeal to "that of God" in some people was to speak sharply, to give them a jolt. After asking Thomas Everden some questions, George Harrison "Looking wistly [intently at] him & said, 'Thou art a Dog,' & left him. Which Words confounded him ... he never got clear of them, Till he received & lived in Truth, & became a Preacher." [George Harrison heard John Liburne, & although], "The Words & sound of the Truth, he liked well," [he felt the need to] "run after him ... with these Words, 'Thou art too high for the Truth.' [Lilburne felt] "a box on the Eare ... that he could never get from under, but lived & died in profession of the Truth." It may be tenderness won't always express itself most effectually in gentleness.
Aldam's son writes: "At an Assizes at York, one Philip Prince, a Lawyer, took [Aldam's] Hat from his Head, & kept it contrary to justice." [Aldam insisted that Prince be brought before the bar & condemned as well as returning his hat]. "I can receive it in the way of Righteousness [&] Justice, or I can't receive it. (My father) went 7 Months without a Hat, in obedience to God 's Command ... [he] was a sign & wonder to all who were covered." [There is seeking for self-justification going on here]. Justice is more than justification. [Some learned forgiveness in suffering injustice; some, in an excess of hardness & moral enthusiasm, learned only more hardness.
CHAPTER III Didactic Enthusiasm: Richard Farnworth—As early as 1659, George Fox answers as many as 110 anti-Quaker works in 1 book. Both sides spent a lot of time & energy in writing pamphlets in which they defended, sometimes briefly, 1 set of principles & attacked another. Their sometimes overpowerful enthusiasm, by the 17th century's end, had come to seem strange & sometimes undesirable to Quakers. Alexander Gordon writes: "Admitting no weapon but the tongue, they used that unsparingly, [as well as pen]." Friends' burning conviction of God's spiritual presence, along with their desire to [witness] may be called didactic enthusiasm.
This enthusiasm is effectively shown by Richard Farnworth. From 1653-1665, Farnworth wrote more than 40 separate works, besides contributions to other Friends' writings, [cut short] by death in 1666 of fever. His letters to other Friends, perhaps more than most, are overflowing with exultant enthusiasm of language. Farnworth's birthplace & early home was Tickhill, little more than 11 km south from Thomas Aldam's home. In relating "convincement" he doesn't mention Fox. He writes: "I was made to deny the priests & their way of worship, & deny all that which I had gathered under them, & wait upon God for teaching, counsel, & direction ... according to his promise. I found inward peace, joy, comfort, righteous law, & satisfaction to my soul. Farnworth writes usually on large sheets in large handwriting, well expressive of his fluent, uncritical outpourings, lengthy exhortations which run on & on. If Aldam is the James of "1st Publishers," Farnworth is the Paul.
[Farnworth's Style and Spirit]—He wrote a letter to Nayler from Balby in 1652: "Sink down into the love and mercies of the Lord ... Mind that which keeps in humbleness and lowliness of mind ... Being guided by that which is of the Lord in every condition, will keep you in the fear of him who is pure ... which keeps you in the obedience ... There will be a growing up and an establishment [in] truth, and in righteousness and purity of action, and humbleness." The repetition of the word pure is something carried over from the Puritans.
In 1653 he writes to Friends: "Put in practice what you know... Be not professors but possessors; take heed of getting above the cross & so you run astray from the Lord, speaking beyond your line or measure ... Let your moderation be known to all ..." [For Quakers], what goes against their own desires & will was valuable discipline for keeping submissive to Divine will. Farnworth writes to Fox: "In light & darkness I am kept laboring ... I complain of loiterers; now they are agrieved at me, & cry out against me & say I break both fairs & markets."
He writes in another letter: "Happy, Happy, days are coming, the sun begins to shine & the little lambs begin to skip; the Lord is our shepherd." He writes of depression: "I am as Noah's dove turned out of all, & hath none to fly to but the Lord alone ... I have no life nor comfort [nor friends] in anything whatsoever but in doing of his will ... I readeth in the book of Revelation much, & often that is the book I preach out of. I am as a white paper book without line or sentence. As it is revealed & written by the Spirit, revealer of secrets, so I administer." Much of their written imagery would be found to come, not always consciously from Revelation.
4
[Absence of Reason in "Proper Quaker Worship"]—John Locke's conception of the mind being tabula rasa, a blank slate, was there ready to be taken over by Friends, with disastrous results. 18th century Quakers believed that the Spirit of God would write upon their hearts, as of old, in independence of, and even in opposition to, their reason; the freer they could be of reason, the more likely they were to be inspired. This conception strengthened the irrational element in early Quakerism and made it difficult to use reason as a God-given check on the running to extremes against which Farnworth had urged. It encouraged an uncritical acceptance of what were believed to be God's messages and commands as always true and right, by [ignoring the effect of] the earthen vessels containing the treasure [on the message]. Difficulties of this kind were likely in light of the general assumption of Scripture's infallibility. Rarely did early Quaker writers admit that they were wrong.
This negative attitude to reason wasn't confined to reason; it was strikingly illustrated in a dispute between Quakers & an East Anglican sect, & in the challenge Farnworth issued that they "preach the word, for 2 weeks together ... You & I will eat no [outward] food ... except a little spring water; & that neither you, nor I look upon any book ... seen with a visible eye." Here is expressed all too clearly the unwillingness to accept the normal limitations of life which God has set in our lives. Farnworth was "as a white paper book without line or sentence but as it was revealed"; it wasn't necessary or desirable to "look upon any book ... seen with a visible eye."
[Over-magnifying of Spiritual Leaders]—Over-magnifying spiritual leaders was also a danger; the danger of idolatry is just as great if persons are treated as God's image as if any metal or mental images are used. It must have been easy for newly "convinced" Friends of [average spiritual insight] to think of their leaders & fathers-in-God, to whom they owed their very souls, as if they were virtual incarnations. James Naylor was treated as such by his adherents, [who performed a "Palm Sunday" procession into Bristol, with Naylor as centerpiece].
A letter to George Fox from Richard Sale contains phrases addressed to Fox like: "Glory, glory to thy name for evermore ... O thou God of life and power ... dreadful and terrible thou art to all flesh ... it was my meat and drink to do thy will, and thy doctrine was made manifest to me ... [you] who is god over all ... " Such blasphemous language was evidently not approved; for someone, probably Margaret Fell, has made alterations throughout. Clearly Sale thought of Fox in a way which can only be termed messianic. While perhaps an ex-treme example, it does not stand alone. Sale was not disowned or treated as one of those who had "run out" into Ranterism; he gave his life not long afterwards, undergoing terrible sufferings for his convictions.
Farnworth wrote to Fox as: "My heart, my life, my oneness ... thou art as a father unto me." He wrote to Margaret Fell: "Thou art the Sara that bears good seed ...thou art with me; I am with thee ...Thou art nursing mother, a queen ... The son is in thy bosom, thou art blessed for evermore ..." Wait all dear babes & lambs, that you may feed upon the milk of the word at the breasts of consolation." It is evidently only an extreme example of affection & admiration in language of which the writer has no fear; he knows it will not be misunderstood. The experience which writer & recipient share is bound to affect their phraseology; & result in didactic enthusiasm.
CHAPTER IV Emotional Enthusiasm: Thomas Holme—Moral & didactic enthusiasm were possible only by being sustained with emotional enthusiasm. Divine inspiration would operate by taking possession not only of minds & wills but also & most of all, of emotions. The infant Society would tend to stress, & even exaggerate sensation & emotion in their new overwhelming experience, [& be condemned as fanatics]. Those caught up in the new experience's rapture may be blissfully unaware of the dangers of exaggeration and abnormality.
Thomas Holme is one of many who might be taken as representative of the [writings done while emotional enthusiasm was at its height, as opposed to those] recollecting the emotions in comparative tranquility. He was a weaver of Kendal, "greatly loved for faithfulness in doeing & Suffering [hardships & Imprisonmt] for truths & Testemony"; he was "the chief labourer in South Wales." He writes to Margaret Fell: "Upon the 16 day of the 8 month, being the same day we were set free [in Chester], ... I was immediately commanded ... to take [Elizabeth Leavens] to wife ... having had a vision of it, [which I did] contrary to my will." [In our examples, if Aldam is the James, and Farnworth the Paul, Holme is undoubtedly the Peter, making quick decisions and sometimes quickly repenting of them; Holme's letters are mostly rhapsodies.
[Holme writes to Margaret Fell of an episode strongly reminiscent of Paul's imprisonment in Acts 16: 25-28, complete with singing and astonishing light]: "And I was afraid, and trembled at the appearance of the light; my legs shook under me ... I was brought to shed many tears, to see the unspeakable love of God, the height, the depth, the breadth and length of [God's Love].
5
[Emotional Enthusiasm in Singing, Trembling, and Weeping]—Margaret Newby writes of the sufferings at Evesham: "[The mayor did violently charge her and put her into a pair of stocks ... And I cleared my conscience and I was moved to sing ... The mayor at length found me out and took hold on me ... and carried me to her, and put both my feet in the same stocks ... and said we should sit there till the morrow ... and be whipped ... and charged us we should not sing ... We did not forbear, being moved eternally by the Lord to sing."
Humphrey Norton writes: "I was one 1st day at Swarth More; in that meatinge there is many speakers & prayers and such a singing as ... I have not heard & likewise a leightness." Thomas Wilan writes: "Thomas Holme and Elizabeth is gone ... We are much refreshed by the voice and sound which the power of God did utter through them ... They were much exercised by the power of the Lord in songs and hymns and prayer ..." Margaret Newby writes again at Hutton: "There was one [convinced] soldier that hath been often in our meetings; this day he was the terriblest shaken, and the power of the Lord wrought so mightily upon him ... he confessed that he never knew the terrors of the Lord against the man of sin afore ... This ministry and the eternal power proceeded from Elizabeth Holme, yea truly the most glorious power is most manifest in her."
"The power of the Lord was over all" meant much more than conviction that God was on their side and would give them the final triumph. It actually meant something very concrete and personal, and something which was visibly manifest in its effects. Tremblings, singing, and weeping, physical expressions of emotional enthusiasm, were particularly marked in meetings for worship, where the influence of the group was at its height. Early Quakers believed that emotional behaviour had its value as unmistakable evidence of "the power." William Penn "wept much and it seemed to him as if a Voice sayd, 'stand on thy feet. How dost know but somebody may be reach'd by thy tears? So he stood up that he might be seen."
[The Power of the Lord]—Throughout these letters are statements [that include references to "the power." Abnormal behaviour was welcomed as evidence of divine influence, quite apart from ethical criterion. This led to regrettable absurdities & to cases of hysteria & fanaticism. [An Anti-Quaker story describing "great & dreadful shaking, trembling, swellings, [noises] affrighting spectaters & [nearby animals], & also "something buzzing about the Quakers head like an humble bee, had some basis in fact. John Lawson writes: "[William Spencer] rose up ... went about half a mile ... & told them he heard a humble bee about his head, & said it was the devil, & made many who were weak to stumble." Spencer wasn't alone in his strange association with bees.
There is a letter about a strange disruption of a steeplehouse service by 5 Quakers. The "power rose" in one of them; they took that one out, but he followed them back in. The letter's author wandered about the church and walked out the back door. "Presently I heard them all of an uproar beating and haling my Friend out of steeplehouse; for he had the power very fiercely as ever I saw any." In both early Quakerism and early Methodism, there was abnormal emotional behavior, shading of into hysteria.
[Emotional Enthusiasm and Sexual Morality]—When tight-laced legalism gives way to the experience of coming into the liberty of the Spirit of Christ, beyond mere obedience to the old law, there are great dangers; the sexual life gets out of hand. The evidence of the Swarthmore manuscripts is that tendencies of this kind were not uncommon. These are lamented and condemned; but they are there. A more frequent line to take was to treat the sexual instinct as something beneath the consideration of those enjoying a fully spiritual life.
Thomas Holme married Elizabeth "... contrary to my will." The married couple continued labouring as "1st Publishers." They were sometimes apart; sometimes together. January 1656, Holme wrote to Margaret Fell that a child was expected. Who was to care for the child? Who was to bear expense? Holme writes to Margaret: "If our going together be the ground of what is against us, the ground shall be removed; the occasion of offense shall be taken away. We had both of us determined long [ago] ... to keep asunder; not to use the power ... Seeing the thing, I am willing to part with all, & to give up all, to the death of the cross. I [won't] continue in the evil."
Fox writes: "Walter Newton was an auncient puritan, askt mee the reason I was marryd. I tolde him as a testimony that all might come uppe Into the marriage as was in the beginning; as a testimony that all might come uppe out the wildernesse to the marriage of the lamb ... I never thought marriage was only for the procreation of children, but onely in obediens to the power of the Lord; I judged such things as below me." The last phrase of the above quote is another emotional example of the refusal to accept the normal human conditions of life, which is the danger of enthusiasm in all its aspect. "Let they that have wives be as those that have none" cannot ever be right, or even possible, for most men. When Elizabeth Holme died before her husband, she left 3 children "2 of wch attained years of discression but walked not in the steps of their honorable parents."
CHAPTER V Spiritual Enthusiasm: James Nayler—The 3 aspects of enthusiasm so far discussed become more definite and more clearly inter-related, if we study one of the finest and best exponents of enthusiasm. For James Naylor, spiritual enthusiasm was being "afire with something [radically] all-inclusive." Fox attributes Naylor's "convincement" to himself; there is no mention of Fox in Naylor's own account. After "publishing truth in the North of England and imprisonment at Appleby, he became an eminent Quaker protagonist in London. He was the ablest speaker and one of the most trusted leaders of the movement, until in 1656 he allowed himself to treated like a [Palm Sunday] Messiah [while entering Bristol], resulting in scandal, trial, cruel punishment, and 3 years imprisonment. The scandal made it imperative that Nayler should be virtually disowned. He was reinstated, but died shortly after beginning to publish truth again.
6
Contemporaries outside the Society sometimes refer to him and not to Fox as the head of the Quakers. Treating the Bristol affair in isolation is neither fair to Nayler, nor a wholly honest treatment of history. His behaviors may be seen as the natural outcome of a certain mistaken line of thought and feeling, in which a widespread but regrettable tendency came to a head. Despite his reconciliation, for a long time after his death Nayler was treated with studied neglect; they had no wish to be associated with his name.
Nayler's handwriting is small, neat & regular, quite different from most early Quaker hands, including Fox. [Judging personalities from their handwriting], the 2 men wouldn't easily understand each other. Nayler's letters were more like real letters. Adding him to our group of writers: Aldam as James; Farnworth as Paul, Holme as Peter; Nayler becomes John. Nayler had a deeply tender, loving, missionary spirit, concerned to seek & to save them that were lost. He also had an attitude of utter, immediate dependence upon God, without recognition of the need for any human medium or instrumentality. The answers he gave at his blasphemy trial [reflect this innocent, if not naive, attitude]. They indicate the simplicity with which Nayler regarded himself & his mission.
In early letters, Nayler writes: "There is presumption got up amongst you, and boasting; in the meantime the pure seed lies under ... Mind that which is pure [and binding] in you ... Richard Myers, thou gets above thy condition, and are run up into the air. Mind the babe in thee, and it will tell thee so. Growing up as babes, you may be kept from error, and ... [with] the sincere milk of the word, ye may grow thereby in all meekness and tenderness, waiting for the kingdom of God in you ..."
[From gaol]: "I am here in peace and joy within, and at rest, though in the midst of the fire ... [My wife] was sent of my father, and fitted by him not to be a in the least a hinderer, but a furtherer of his work ... It is my joy to do or suffer the will of my father; for therefore came I into the world ... Bread and water ... is not any bondage to me within or without, for it is my liberty and freedom ... I see that to be taken out of all created things is perfect freedom, but no freedom until then ... God fits the creature for that condition he calls them to, and all is to hearken to his call and obey it ... If he seem to smile, follow him in fear and love; and if he seems to frown, follow him, and fall into his will, and you shall see he is yours still."
With his phrase, "the Lord hath set me above all created things," Nayler is taking the 1st step along the wrong road [of blasphemous entry in] to Bristol. He uses this phrase in writing about fasting [i.e.] being "taken out of all created things." A Swarthmore manuscript in 1659 mentions 7 people in 1 household fasting from 5 to over 20 days. An early Quaker tract challenges Papists to "go 30 dayes without Bread or Water, or ... 30 days with [only] bread & Water, & try & see if his belly be not his God." Opponents sometime replied that: "our Sa-viour bids his Disciples ... eat & drink such things as [are] set before them among whom they went preaching."
Nayler's letter to Margaret Fell tells of a young man, newly convinced, "made very bold," who withstood the torment and threats of 12 priests, who "went away in great rage ... Running before, [the young man] lost his guide [Note: Nayler used this phrase later in recanting his own behavior at Bristol] ... At length [the young man] grew so high, that [temptation] prevailed with him to put his hand into a kettle full of boiling liquor ... they reported that he held it in a quarter of an hour." John Toldervy writes: "I was possessed with a command from that Spirit in me, upon the account of Salvation, that I should put my right hand in the pan of hot water; (giving me to know, that the heat thereof should not seize upon me.)"
[Chapter Conclusion]—Identification with Christ, however well intentioned spiritually, was both highly dangerous for Nayler's own religious life and almost bound to lead to further charges of blasphemy if not actual blasphemous behavior such as that at Bristol. Opponents object to Nayler urging on us his own revelation over that "testimony of the other J.N. Jesus of Nazareth." It was just because his was such a tender, delicate, etheral nature that he was carried further than others along a mistaken path. It was a tragedy that he did not prove strong enough to follow the advice he had given to others, to "to mind the babe in thee," to keep lowly and meek, and to follow his guide." He deliberately neglected the divinely set limitations and conditions of our common humanity; disaster was inevitable. Fox wrote: "Jam. Nayler runn out and a company with him Into Imaginations. And they raised uppe a great darknesse in the nation; he came to Bristol and made a disturbans there."
Not only did Nayler "run in" again, but his sufferings only purified his fine and noble spirit. Perhaps in 1658, Nayler wrote: "Truly for the hardness and unreconcileableness which is in some I am astonished and shaken ... [The spirit of Christ Jesus] naturally inclines to mercy and forgiveness, not to bind one under a tres-pass till the uttermost farthing ... By a spirit which delights more in forgiving debts ... I have been able to bear all things while it is with me. One lesson to be learned from his life, as indeed from these studies as a whole, is the way in which penetrating spiritual insight and mistaken exaggeration can exist side by side in the same person.
Nayler's handwriting is small, neat & regular, quite different from most early Quaker hands, including Fox. [Judging personalities from their handwriting], the 2 men wouldn't easily understand each other. Nayler's letters were more like real letters. Adding him to our group of writers: Aldam as James; Farnworth as Paul, Holme as Peter; Nayler becomes John. Nayler had a deeply tender, loving, missionary spirit, concerned to seek & to save them that were lost. He also had an attitude of utter, immediate dependence upon God, without recognition of the need for any human medium or instrumentality. The answers he gave at his blasphemy trial [reflect this innocent, if not naive, attitude]. They indicate the simplicity with which Nayler regarded himself & his mission.
In early letters, Nayler writes: "There is presumption got up amongst you, and boasting; in the meantime the pure seed lies under ... Mind that which is pure [and binding] in you ... Richard Myers, thou gets above thy condition, and are run up into the air. Mind the babe in thee, and it will tell thee so. Growing up as babes, you may be kept from error, and ... [with] the sincere milk of the word, ye may grow thereby in all meekness and tenderness, waiting for the kingdom of God in you ..."
[From gaol]: "I am here in peace and joy within, and at rest, though in the midst of the fire ... [My wife] was sent of my father, and fitted by him not to be a in the least a hinderer, but a furtherer of his work ... It is my joy to do or suffer the will of my father; for therefore came I into the world ... Bread and water ... is not any bondage to me within or without, for it is my liberty and freedom ... I see that to be taken out of all created things is perfect freedom, but no freedom until then ... God fits the creature for that condition he calls them to, and all is to hearken to his call and obey it ... If he seem to smile, follow him in fear and love; and if he seems to frown, follow him, and fall into his will, and you shall see he is yours still."
With his phrase, "the Lord hath set me above all created things," Nayler is taking the 1st step along the wrong road [of blasphemous entry in] to Bristol. He uses this phrase in writing about fasting [i.e.] being "taken out of all created things." A Swarthmore manuscript in 1659 mentions 7 people in 1 household fasting from 5 to over 20 days. An early Quaker tract challenges Papists to "go 30 dayes without Bread or Water, or ... 30 days with [only] bread & Water, & try & see if his belly be not his God." Opponents sometime replied that: "our Sa-viour bids his Disciples ... eat & drink such things as [are] set before them among whom they went preaching."
Nayler's letter to Margaret Fell tells of a young man, newly convinced, "made very bold," who withstood the torment and threats of 12 priests, who "went away in great rage ... Running before, [the young man] lost his guide [Note: Nayler used this phrase later in recanting his own behavior at Bristol] ... At length [the young man] grew so high, that [temptation] prevailed with him to put his hand into a kettle full of boiling liquor ... they reported that he held it in a quarter of an hour." John Toldervy writes: "I was possessed with a command from that Spirit in me, upon the account of Salvation, that I should put my right hand in the pan of hot water; (giving me to know, that the heat thereof should not seize upon me.)"
[Chapter Conclusion]—Identification with Christ, however well intentioned spiritually, was both highly dangerous for Nayler's own religious life and almost bound to lead to further charges of blasphemy if not actual blasphemous behavior such as that at Bristol. Opponents object to Nayler urging on us his own revelation over that "testimony of the other J.N. Jesus of Nazareth." It was just because his was such a tender, delicate, etheral nature that he was carried further than others along a mistaken path. It was a tragedy that he did not prove strong enough to follow the advice he had given to others, to "to mind the babe in thee," to keep lowly and meek, and to follow his guide." He deliberately neglected the divinely set limitations and conditions of our common humanity; disaster was inevitable. Fox wrote: "Jam. Nayler runn out and a company with him Into Imaginations. And they raised uppe a great darknesse in the nation; he came to Bristol and made a disturbans there."
Not only did Nayler "run in" again, but his sufferings only purified his fine and noble spirit. Perhaps in 1658, Nayler wrote: "Truly for the hardness and unreconcileableness which is in some I am astonished and shaken ... [The spirit of Christ Jesus] naturally inclines to mercy and forgiveness, not to bind one under a tres-pass till the uttermost farthing ... By a spirit which delights more in forgiving debts ... I have been able to bear all things while it is with me. One lesson to be learned from his life, as indeed from these studies as a whole, is the way in which penetrating spiritual insight and mistaken exaggeration can exist side by side in the same person.
7
CHAPTER VI Enthusiasm "Run Out": The Ranters—In James Nayler we saw an example of spiritual enthusiasm at its best and also at its worst. Other early Friends were misled along the same road, but did not go as far as Nayler. Scattered throughout the country in the Quaker's early years, was a group of people more or less permanently "run out": the Ranters. Never officially organized, they may be found in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire, Norfolk, Suffolk, London, Sussex, Hampshire, Bristol, Dorset, Cornwall. There was an occasion in Leicestershire, 1654, when Baptists, Quakers, and Ranters gathered and caused civil authorities some alarm. "Truth sprange uppe 1st in Leistersheere" (Fox).
The Quaker-Ranter relationship is complicated. There is confusion 1st from [contemporaries lumping Quakers & Ranters together], & later from Quaker historians repudiating any connection with them. The "Quaker" who "drew his sword & hurt divers at the parliment door, answered, that he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to kill every man that sat in the house." The man was actually a well-known Ranter, John Tany. Some see Quakers as Ranters who [took a sharp turn away] "from profaneness & blasphemy to a life of extream austerity." Thomas Lawson writes: "The Ranters had cast out among them, that there was nothing stood between them & Quakers."
A Yorkshire Justice of the Peace told Fox "if God hadn't raised uppe this principle of light & life ... the nation had beene overspread with rantisme." Hostility to Ranters & disapproval of their principles were regularly expressed by the Quakers whenever the occasion arose, [disparaging behavior & accusing them of hypocrisy]. In their written response to Ranters' claims, Friends used language more tender than in controversies with others, [acknowledging tender & simple hearts, being zealous for the truth, practising what was made known, pure convincement, & that they had tasted the power of God]. It would appear as if Friends recognized that they & Ranters had come together on their spiritual pilgrimage, but had diverged. [There seemed to be a longing] for the Ranters to be brought back from their wandering; the Ranters had a common spiritual ancestry with the Quakers.
[Ranters and Quakers: Common Roots and Divergence]—William Penn writes: "These people were called Seekers by some, & the Family of Love by others ... they sometimes ... waited together in silence, & as anything rose in any one of their minds, so they sometimes spoke... Some, for want of staying their minds in an humble dependence upon Him that opened their understandings to see great things in His law, they ran out in their own imaginations, and mixing them with those divine openings, brought forth a monstrous birth, to the scandal of those that feared God ..." The point of divergence was recent. Thomas Story writes that American Ranters: " held absurd and blasphemous Opinions; that GOD had taken their Souls out of their Bodies into himself, and he occupied the Place in the Bodies where their souls had been; so that it was no more they that acted or said any Thing, how ridiculous or absurd soever, but GOD in their Bodies."
It will be seen that Ranterism was enthusiasm "run out" into blasphemous identification of soul with God & freedom of spirit that was pure license. This is the meaning of the Ranters' cry, "All is ours." In modern language, the Ranters had jumped a stage. No wonder that Friends were sensitive to any association with Ranters. Pharisaism & remorseless ethical judgment; exalting others as though they are divine &/or Messiah; emotional fanaticism & amoral use of "the power"; immorality; seeking the power to life "above all created things." All such tendencies noted in earlier chapters are tendencies which lead to Ranterism. Each involves "running out" beyond the limits to human life which God in his wisdom has set, rather than soul keeping "within its measure."
[Ranters and Quakers: Moral Differences/ Conclusion]—The strongest & clearest differentiation between Quaker & Ranter movements was with morals. Also, Nayler's fall made Friends draw up sharply. Henceforth they walked more carefully, with awareness of spiritual enthusiasm's temptations; Fox especially, was more careful. [There were those who wanted to do to Fox what they did to Nayler]. William Penn wrote: "[Fox] pressed by his presence or epistle, a ready, zealous compliance with such good & wholesome things as tended to an orderly conversation about the affairs of the church, & ... walking before men." "A grown Friend" or "a stayed Friend" was often invited to visit ministry groups where there was "a pretty convincement" but where Friends were only beginning "to war with the world in the stirring life."
Early Quakers were in danger of [having] their new spiritual experience carry them, through faulty psychology, into notions & actions which were fanatical & extravagant. We are now in danger of treating their fanatical & extravagant tendencies as invalidating their enthusiasm. If we do so, our psychology is as faulty as was theirs ... "Imperfect conception of human nature is no valid ground for denying the reality of the spiritual experience which possessed them" [Braithwaite] ... The spiritual experience behind the abnormality is the greater thing; this [is] something we should admire & seek to share ... Our task is to prove this experience's reality, while acknowledging the conditions, limitations & uncertainties of common humanity ...
We won't accept the fact that in the religious sphere, as in the aesthetic, there is no final, infallible rule. [There are "unprovable" things; there is unavoidable uncertainty] ... If we go on [anyway] with as clear a conscience as we may, we shall have more light given us as we go, [as we] walk by faith, not sight ... Neither reason nor intuitions may be [absolutely trusted] or put aside; ... [such an action would be] trying to "live above them" or "out of them," & is a kind of atheism or insult to God; a doubt, a lack of faith in Christ's power to redeem what is ...
We are to use all God's gifts to the full, and at the same time not to suppose that ... we shall not make mistakes ... [making mistakes is better than] dismissing the way of Christian enthusiasm as altogether too dangerous. We may set forth on a life of adventure with courage if: we believe in God's Active Spiritual Presence; if we seek to remain "in our measure," humbly conscious of our humanity with all its limitations, happy to live in the conditions in which in His wisdom He has set us.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
8
114. How They Became Friends (by Howard Haines Brinton; 1961)
About the Author—This is Howard Brinton’s 12th Pendle Hill Pamphlet. A teacher of mathematics and physics as well as religion, Howard Brinton has been a professor or lecturer at Guilford, Earlham, Mills, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Woodbrooke. Howard Brinton was Director of Pendle Hill from 1936 to 1952.PREFACE—The nucleus of the following essay was an address delivered at Pacific YM. Though the 20th century differs radically from the 17th, the methods by which the Society of Friends is growing today do not differ much from those of the earliest time; their methods are still applicable. The results of the Quaker movement cannot be understood without reference to the inward experiences.
Silent effortless waiting with a mind completely open, not only to what may be heard within, but also to what may be hear from without, will direct the seeker toward his goal: to bring into harmony the springs of Life deep within and the routine affairs of outward life. [Introduction]—The means by which a religious movement extends its membership largely determines the movement’s nature. From the Quaker movement’s outset in the middle of the 17th century, meetings for worship were based on silence, [a silence sometimes, but not always broken by spoken words]. How can [this] religion be propagated? How can it be communicated to the public, & to the next generation of its own members?
There was much that was highly dramatic in the early years of the Quaker movement. There was preaching in the streets, marketplaces, orchards, [& steeplehouses after the sermon]. There was very stubborn but passive resistance to persecution. Careful scrutiny of early Quakerism shows that [outwardly] spectacular events did not constitute the heart & core of the movement. Its real strength lay in the quiet inconspicuous growth of small meetings in homes, where sometimes only 3 or 4 waited upon God; often there was no speaking at all. This same method has produced many of the nearly 200 new meetings in America & others in Europe and Asia. [Less preaching means less dependence on words and the opportunity for cultivation of the inward life of the Spirit].
[Evidence of The 1st Publishers of the Truth]—Fortunately we have ample material on why & how people became Friends in the 17th century. There is an eyewitness account collection from nearly every meeting in England, called The 1st Publishers of Truth. There were also journals or spiritual autobiographies [of what happen after what Friends called convincement rather than “conversion,” which was often a lifelong process].
26 journals were published between 1689 & 1725; 14 appeared later. From 1652-1720, we have about 40 short accounts of the writers’ [gradual] acceptance of the Inward Light. Reports to London YM, 90 in number, came in slowly from 1680-1720. Study of journals & partial journals indicate that a majority of original Friends came into the movement by just the right combination of both silence & preaching. There were many seeking souls who arrived at the Quaker position alone & later discovered the Quaker movement. It was the genius of George Fox that brought together into a coordinated whole the religious insights of many isolated individuals.
The early Quaker meetings [often] began with long silences. George Whitehead, who began travel in ministry at 16, wrote: “We had little preaching; our meetings, kept much & often in Silence. The Lord was pleased sometimes by his power & Word of Life, to tender & open my heart & understanding; he gave me now & then a few words livingly to utter.” Whitehead’s extraordinary struggles with the government was inspired by what he received in meeting for worship. Edward Burroughs wrote of long silences, [& that]: “Our tongues were loosed, & our mouths opened, & we spoke with new tongues as the Lord gave us utterance, & as his Spirit led us.”
From what Francis Howgill said, it would appear that “many hundreds” were drawn more by the spiritual power of silence than by speech. George Fox said: “To bring them to silence confounds their wisdom.” [John Burnyeat & Luke Howard said similarly that the workings and instruction of the Lord were clearly present in the silence]. Many early meetings were held in complete silence, a condition much dreaded by some Friends today.
[Examples of Propagating Quakerism]—The Cornwall meeting writes: “The 1st that came into the County was our ancient & faithful friend, George Fox, with Edward Pyott & William Salt; they were informed of [3 men] who received them thankfully.” Others came & meetings were in one home after another with the same group. Traveling Quakers, finding out by enquiry who these persons were, gathered them in a hospitable home. This continued to happened until a meeting was settled. Often the traveling Friends were directed to likely hosts by persons at a distance. John Roberts entertained & had meeting with 2 women Friends. When the bishop asked John Roberts if he went to Church, Roberts replied: “No, church came to me”; this much confused the bishop.
Today a Friend might go into some town where by enquiring he could discover any interest in hearing the Quaker message. A social gathering or study group might prove to be the beginning of a settled meeting. In California there was an English Friend named Frederick Sainty. He was hunting out isolated Friends in areas where there was no meeting and getting them together. When we were collecting the group which eventually became Pacific YM, we made enquiries in many directions.
Quaker meetings, like all real organisms, generally start with a small germ cell. Welsh Quakerism met on a hill. Irish Quakerism began in the home of William Edmondson. There is evidence to show that when meetings were small, but large enough to fill the living room of a farm house, Quakerism was more vital than later when large meeting houses were built. Meetings will tend to remain small for several years before they begin to grow.
[Synthesis of Silence and Word]—True convincement requires a genuine synthesis of silent worship and the spoken word. John Gratton (1641-1712) wrote: “…Though few words were spoken, yet I was well satisfied with the meeting. And there arose a sweet melody, that went through the meeting, and the presence of the Lord was in the midst of us.” Richard Davies wrote: “The Word of the Lord … pierced through our inward parts, it melted and brought us into tears … I could have said the God alone was master of that assembly.”
[Another substitute for the word “conversion”] is tendering, which is to be made sensitive, open, not only to the leadings of the Spirit, and to the needs and conditions of other persons. Benjamin Bangs (1652-1741) said: “[Inwardly], I got to a sight of the possibility of obtaining [mastery over my own mind that] I was then deeply engaged for, and this answered the end of my coming to the meeting.”
How did those who “settled” the 1st meetings for worship themselves come to Quakerism when there were no meetings? George Fox came as a result of his own insights. Many –not all—radical Puritans found that the doctrine of the primacy of the Holy Spirit and inward experience carried them fully into the Quaker movement. Fox was the organizing genius who succeeded in devising a type of church government which prevented a religion based on inwardness from degenerating into anarchy.
Fox located a group of 9 “finders,” people who appear to have come to the Quaker position independently of Fox. The direct knowledge of God was all James Nayler needed become a Quaker. Richard Hubberstone “being already convinced of the blessed Truth, joined with what G. Fox had preached, & went abroad to some meetings.” Alexander Jaffray & Edward Chester arrived at Quakerism independently, Chester [being] “convinced of blessed Truth by his own fireside as he sat alone.” All that several groups needed was a message from some prophetic personality to tell them what it was they were seeking and already finding. John Marshall records: “By John Audland’s powerful ministry, committed to him by the Lord, I was reached and turned to the Spirit of God.”
There was an extraordinary amount of printed material issued to convince the unconvinced and to defend themselves from their detractors. A rough estimate of the 1st 50 years would set the total number of copies distributed at between 2½ to 4 million, in spite of the fact that for most of that time the printing of Quaker literature was illegal. Samuel Crisp 1st believed all Quakers to be fools or madmen. He writes: “I cast my eye on Barclay’s works … I read Barclay, & there I found a light to break in upon my mind which did mightily refresh & comfort me … I left the communion of the Church of England, & went to Gracechurch Street Meeting.” Stephen Grellet and Jonathon Evans found William Penn’s “No Cross, no crown” to be a turning point in their lives.
Some were 1st drawn toward Quakerism by witnessing patient endurance of persecution by early Friends. Oliver Sansom [believed in Quakerism], but feared to come out openly. He writes: “And now … many Friends being in prison … I could no longer keep back, or conceal myself: but necessity came upon me to come forth, & show myself, & take my part & lot with the sufferers. Luke Howard & Samuel Fisher gave up singing as “a lie in me & mock service to the Lord.” Friends discovered they couldn’t sing words which didn’t describe what they felt. Friends had no objection singing in worship if the words genuinely expressed their feeling. Gharret van Hassen, a Dutchman, was brought into Quakerism by fervent prayer in a language he didn’t understand. Inviting visitors home to dinner after meeting is sometimes effective, though the motive should be one of hospitality
Most of those who “settled” the meetings were unlearned persons who could state simple Quaker doctrine of the Inward Light in simple terms, with words that took effect after preparation through silent waiting. Early Friends found it convenient that they had learned members (Penn, Barclay, Fisher, Claridge & others), to answer critics on theological grounds; this learning was of small advantage in winning adherents [to the Inward Light].
[Today’s Seekers]—Are there seekers in our country today, as there was in 17th England? Quakerism reached its numerical climax about 1800. [The decline that followed] was partly due to separations which afflicted other religious groups as well. Science in the 19th century at first appeared to be inconsistent with an inwardly directed type of religion. Leading Quaker scientists, among them Sylvanus P. Thompson, and Arthur S. Eddington, have pointed out that science tends to reinforce Quakerism’s attitudes.
The laboratory replaced the church [and the Spirit within] as source of the most important truth. Science is a means for accomplishing certain ends, but it has nothing to say about what those ends should be, and it can deal with only a portion of human experience. The poet, the prophet, and the mystic have as certain [or uncertain] a road to their kind of truth as the scientists have to their kind of truth.
[During this time, there was also] recognition that man’s psychic life is only partly self-conscious, that beyond the threshold of consciousness there is a boundless deep which is of primary importance in forming character & life’s ultimate goals & meaning. [Deeper than the subconscious] is the One Life in which we all share, the Vine of which we are all branches. The unseen or mystical world is a real world, since it produces real ef-fects. [Both William James & Carl Jung] find God in the soul’s depths as the ultimate source of that power by which we are regenerated. [The Friends’] Inner Life of the Spirit is consistent with psychology’s most modern trends.
3rd, there is an important connection between Quakerism & the religions of Asia. Living from within out, as one follows one’s inner leading, rather than following the conventional opinions of society, produces everywhere [in the world] the same type of person. The above 3 tendencies do not by any means give a complete explanation of why there are so many seekers today. They want to bring into harmony the springs of Life deep within and the routine affairs of outward life. Silent effortless waiting with a mind completely open, not only to what may be heard within, but also to what may be hear from without, will direct the seeker toward his goal.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
71. Let your Lives Speak (by Elfrida Vipont Foulds; 1953)
[About the Author—Elfrida Vipont was born in Manchester in July 1902 [died 1992]. Her parents were Quakers & she had two siblings. She was educated at Manchester High School for Girls & The Mount School for Girls. She entered Manchester University to read History but withdrew to travel as a professional singer, freelance writer & lecturer. She served on the Meeting for Sufferings of London YM from 1939 to 1985, & several other councils & committees. Her books include: Quakerism: An International Way of Life (1930), as E. V. Foulds; A Lily among Thorns: some passages in the life of Margaret Fell of Swarthmoor Hall (Friends Home Service Committee, 1950); Arnold Rowntree: a life (Bannisdale Press, 1955) — about Arnold S. Rowntree ]
EDITOR’S NOTE—300 years ago, [in 1652, George Fox] strode across the English countryside, & in the vigor & power of his passing, a new spiritual movement was born. He felt so deeply the necessity to tell of Truth & Light within that he brought his messages wherever people would hear him. Among those who joined the group was Margaret Fell of Swarthmore Hall. In August 1952, Quakers from many countries came to Oxford, England for the Religious Society of Friends’ Tercentenary Conference. In this pamphlet, an English Quaker recreates some of what happened in 1652, & calls attention to the meanings & challenges of those days.
LET YOUR LIVES SPEAK
HERE OR NEAR THIS ROCK GEORGE FOX PREACHED TO ABOUT 1,000 SEEKERS FOR 3 HOURS, SUNDAY JULY 13, 1652. GREAT POWER INSPIRED HIS MESSAGE & THE MEETING PROVED OF 1ST IMPORTANCE IN GATHERING FRIENDS KNOWN AS QUAKERS. MANY MEN AND WOMEN CONVINCED OF THE TRUTH WENT [OVER] … LAND & … SEA … WINNING MULTITUDES TO CHRIST.—[Excerpt] From a tablet on a great rock known as “Fox’s pulpit,” near Firbank Fell, England.
The Kingdom of Heaven did gather us, and catch us all as in a net … [and we] came to know a place to stand in and what to wait in.—Francis Howgill
The Challenge of Obedience—In 1920, the Friends attending the 1st World Conference declared that to follow the way of Christ involved living here and now “as though the Kingdom of God had come.” [But] the keys of the Kingdom too often elude all but the rarer spirits among us. That is why it repays us to study the events & personalities of 1652 more closely. [There is more than meets the eye in George Fox’s climbing Pendle Hill, especially when looked at from a 17th century point-of-view.] In the 17th century, people didn't usually climb to enjoy a view, least of all Pendle Hill. Pendle was a place of ill repute, a haunt of witches & warlocks.
When George Fox recorded that he was “moved of the Lord” to climb Pendle Hill, he [meant] that he had done a “senseless” thing because … God’s guidance [said] to do it. One man was so dependent on God’s guidance that he forsook the safe road for the barren mountain, for no other reason than that God had led him there. On what far mountain of the spirit does the vision for our own day await us? [We may walk on a road that] seems useful & leads us in the way service to others; but can we be sure that we walk it with a sensitive spirit, ready to leave it for the barren mountain if the Lord wills it? Such guidance is “better than a known way.
The Challenge of the Vision/Recognition—To understand something of George Fox’s vision, one need only climb Pendle Hill on a clear day. Suddenly, almost without warning, the struggle is over, the world drops away, & the heavens declare God’s glory. George Fox received his vision from the summit of Pendle Hill. The challenge of that vision is still with us. George Fox said: “[Someone] asked me from whence I came; I answered him, ‘From the Lord.’ ” [Today] we may have overlooked the importance of the question: “Whence come ye?”
At Brigflatts, Borrat, Sedbergh, & on the slopes of Firbank Fell, George Fox found “people waiting to be gathered.” Francis Howgill was also at Sedbergh & Firbank Fell, where about 1,000 men & women from the countryside gathered in that lonely spot. At Preston Patrick, Thomas Camm recalls the restlessness of the General Meeting of Seekers in the chapel. When George Fox delivered the message, it swept them all off their feet & made it “a day of God’s power. Seeking spirit & recognition of the message were essential to the 1652 events. 300 years have passed, & still the world needs both the mountain top seer & the seekers stirring in the dales.
The Challenge of Swarthmoor Hall—The journey of George Fox started with a “moving of the Lord,” [flared through the countryside & its seekers], until the arrival at Swarthmoor Hall, & the hearthstone of a home. Margaret Fell, a cultured, charming woman & mistress of the Hall, had been seeking the Truth for years; she recognized George Fox’s message, not only in her home, but in the full glare of publicity in Ulverston Church.
It must be remembered that Swarthmoor Hall was the home of a loving, united family before it became the home of Quakerism. 3 weeks after George Fox’s 1st visit, Judge Fell came riding homewards across the desolate Sands and was near Ulverston Shore when grave gentlemen gave him the somber warning that his wife and children were bewitched. [The word brought back memories of witches being tried and hanged at Lancaster, with a cultured, charming woman and mistress of a great Hall hanging along with them].
Judge Fell might have believed the accusation and angry superstition might have been aroused against Margaret Fell and her children. He might have belittled her new emotions and experiences very tenderly, very masterfully, [and quietly rid his house] “of these rather impossible people.” Instead he chose to stand beside her, so that together they might face whatever consequences, for joy or sorrow, this new experience might bring.
The love of Thomas and Margaret Fell and the strength of their family life were big enough to stand the strain. The tolerance of Judge Fell, who never threw in his lot with Friends, was something miraculous in his own or any other age. [He met his young wife’s and his family’s new belief, he met George Fox’s words, with quiet and stillness]. A 20th century Friend stood on the summit of Pendle Hill and realized that [new] Swarthmoor Halls must be built, not in any one place, or in any one fashion, but wherever Quaker men and women make their home together in a love which is ready stand the test and be enriched by what it spends.
The Challenge of the Outgoing Spirit/Friendship—Quakerism’s home could only conserve its strength by sharing; it could only preserve its message by spreading it. The only way to the wider world lay across the dangerous Sands of Morecambe Bay. Thomas Salthouse referred to Margaret Fell as a “lily among thorns.” In this region, a lily was a wild daffodil & still is today. Will Caton left a picture of Margaret Fell; he saw her in a vision, “spinning flax most joyfully being clothed with honor & beauty.”
Across the Sands at low tide rode George Fox, singing as he went, to his trial at Lancaster. Margaret Fell faced the supreme moment of her life, when though dispossessed & without worldly protection she said: “Although I am out of the King’s protection, yet I'm not out of protection of Almighty God.” There was hardly one amongst the 1st Publishers of Truth who didn't at some time make that journey, leaving the shelter of Swarthmoor Hall for the storms & stresses of a persecuting world. Many returned to be refreshed by its spirit. Only the resources of the spirit are infinite & only these can build up the homes whose wealth can thus be shared.
[In the Sands], perhaps more than anywhere else on earth, one may realize what friendship meant to the Early Friends. Margaret Fell had a friend, Robert Widders, who never failed to sense their distress and set out from the far shore of the Bay, in all seasons and weather in order to bring Swarthmoor the comfort of a friend. Such sensitivity means an outgoing of the spirit. It is an echo of the deeper exercise of the spirit which is prayer.
The Challenge of Strength—The men and women who responded to the original challenge of 1652 were a mixed company, in age, capacity and outward circumstance, but all shared an [outer and inner] strength. Fox was “as stiff as a tree and as pure as a bell, for we could never stir him.” [Someone else with a similar reputation] was Edward Burrough. “His very strength was bended after God.” George Fox and Edward Burrough were endowed with physical strength above the average, but it was not physical strength alone.
There was a sense of direction, a capacity for putting 1st things 1st. Of Robert Widders it was said: “He ever preferred the Lord’s business before his own & never lost an inch of ground.” We can only live as if the Kingdom of God has come, if we do indeed ever prefer the Lord’s business before our own; only by doing so will we never lose an inch of ground. Among those pioneer Friends who gathered in 1652, there was to be found the physical strength which is “bended after God,” and the strength of purpose which always put the Lord’s business 1st. [There is yet another strength, like that of Richard Hubberhorne]. “One could feel his strength in the still spirit that kept him.” This unfailing strength is with one whose mind is stayed on God. They see the ocean of love & light, because they are part of that ocean of love & light and their strength is swallowed up in it, whether they live or die. It is no easy optimism. To know the Lord is at work, you have to be at work with the Lord.
The Challenge of Steadfastness/Sowing—Few of us expect to leave lasting traces on the sands of time. That is why it is helpful occasionally to remember those other, nameless ones who lie in many forgotten Quaker burial grounds. Most Seekers whose hearts were touched in 1652 came to know the grim interior of Lancaster Castle. Lancaster Friends busied themselves with charitable efforts to keep the helpless prisoners supplied with food, blankets & candles; it was thanks to them that more captives did not forfeit their lives [for liberty’s sake].
Few Friends meetings in “1652 country” do not have among their founders men and women who took their lives in their hands every time they attended meeting for worship. There exists a petition that asks for their rights as Englishmen to be tried. [They cite “Unnecessary Charges” and “Impoverishment” and close with:] “if you will not Grant theise things unto us, then shall wee lye downe in the peace of God and patiently Suffer under you.” That was the spirit which finally broke down the persecution. [The ones we remember best could not have done it without those we hardly remember, if at all]. The closing words of the petition cited above are reminiscent of Shadrach’s, Meshach’s, and Abednego’s declaration before the fiery furnace.
The pioneers of Quakerism could not know for certain that victory would be theirs. Like the good farmers that so many of them were, they sowed the seeds without asking whether they themselves would reap the har-vest. [In the case of Thomas Camm, who returned home worn out and broken in health, to die with his own folk, he may have contented himself with the stirring days at Bristol with John Audland]. But the most far-reaching results of his work were never to be known to him in life, [for at Oxford he inspired Thomas Loe, who in turn inspired William Penn, the founder of the Great Experiment in Pennsylvania].
The Challenge of Joy/“Come from the 4 Winds—The final challenge of 1652 is one which has for too long remained unanswered in the history of Quakerism. It springs from the note of joy that characterized the early pioneers like Francis Howgill, John Audland, Thomas Briggs, Margaret Newby and Elizabeth Cowart. [Briggs was convinced at Fox’s 1st trial in Lancaster]. He founded the Manchester meeting, and there, when he was imprisoned in a filthy dungeon, “the Lord was so with him that he sang for joy.” Margaret and Elizabeth from the Evesham sang in the stocks, during their 17 hours there. The spirit of the early days of Quakerism will not be fully renewed in the 4th century of its history until the full secret of that joy is rediscovered and expressed anew and until we are indeed fully convinced that nothing, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come … will separate us from the love of God.”
The winter months are long in the northwest of England, whence first came the challenges of 1652. The snows may return again and again in our hearts and in our lives, but still the promise of new life is there. The world today is hagridden by fear, as if indeed the witches and warlocks of old Pendle had come to life, to execute a fearsome vengeance on humankind. Justice Crook, turned Quaker [experienced a night of haunting right after being filled to overflowing with “sweetness and peace covering his mind and such intimations of divine favor as greatly refreshed him.” He answered the damning voice with]: “Thou’rt a liar! Thou’rt a liar! For I feel this moment the sweet peace of my God flow through my heart.”
There's no lack of damning voices now. Where are the “overflowings of sweetness & peace” to be found? If we could accept 1652's challenges, we should know the Lord works in darkness; that love’s & light’s ocean is unquenchable; that what may befall us, our joy no man taketh from us. To accept these challenges isn't impossible. [We may not be among those who “leave behind Footprints in the sands of time”]; we may well be seekers, ready to be caught up in the net. Ours is the faith that doesn’t ask to see the harvest of its sowing; ours the joy that sings in the dark places of the earth. The challenges of 1652 are inescapable & they are with us now.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
34. Quakers' Contributions of the Quakers (by Elizabeth Janet Gray; 1947 (Great Britain; Copyright 1939)
Foreword—What are the contributions of the people called Quakers to the USA? We are dealing with what cannot be measured. Some things we will only be able to say “The Quakers saw this first,” or “The Quakers started this and others have carried it on.” The strength of a country’s fabric lies in the mingling of the threads, [Quaker among them], and the support they bring to each other.”
What the Quakers gave to the US comes not from their numbers or from their material possessions, but from their ideals and the power which these ideals gave to their lives. E. J. Gray
PART ONE: THE QUAKERS
1. The Coming of the Quakers (Massachusetts)—The 1st Quakers arrived in America July 11, 1656. Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans were ruling in England. There were English colonies in New England, Maryland, and Virginia; Dutch colonies in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The Swallow brought 2 Quaker women, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, into Boston Harbor. [2 days after they were deported], 8 more Quakers arrived; they spent 11 weeks in prison. The Massachusetts General Court passed harsh laws against Quakers and any who helped them get to Boston, [finally sentencing any 2nd offenders to hang]. [Still they kept coming], each time convincing some of the truth of their message. None recanted or gave up the practices that marked them as Quakers; their numbers grew. Though the good people of Massachusetts had the great idea of religious liberty for themselves, they had not yet conceived the greater idea of religious liberty for all.
1... (Rhode Island)—Quaker missionaries had gone to Rhode Island. [Their message spoke to the condition of many there]. The 1st Yearly Meeting in America was established at Newport in 1661. [There were enough Monthly Meetings to gather into Quarterly Meetings, and enough Quarterly Meetings to gather into a Yearly Meeting. Quakers took a large part in the government of the colony. Until the 1750s, ½ of RI was Quaker. From MA and RI Quakerism spread north, and to Nantucket Island.
1… (New York)—NY received its 1st Quakers with distrust and harshness, beatings and deporting. Little Quaker groups grew up on Long Island and flourished there. The English took over the colony and the Duke of York declared religious liberty, thus making New York safe for all, including Quakers.
1… (The Southern Colonies)—In 1656 the Quaker testimonies went also to Maryland and Virginia; there were no persecutions in Maryland and in 1672 the 2nd Yearly Meeting in America was established in Baltimore. In Virginia there were penalties for: not going to church; unlawful assemblies (religious services); failure to baptize. Quakers were imprisoned and flogged; some died and Quakerism spread. In North Carolina there was no persecution to face. Quakers were the 1st religious group of any kind. In Charleston, South Carolina a little meeting house was built; one of the early governors was the Quaker John Archdale.
1… (New Jersey)—When Quakers came to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, they came in large numbers to live there. James, Duke of York was given what is now New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Quakers were beginning to think longingly of the land beyond the sea [as a place to live] in peace and freedom. 2 Quakers bought West New Jersey (Pennsylvania) for £1,000. Edward Bylinge sold his share to pay off a debt.
Quakers bought the land and wrote the “Concessions and Agreements” by which it was to be governed. John Fenwick sailed in the Griffin with Quaker colonists and land at a place they called Salem. The ship Kent brought 200 Quakers to a place they called Burlington. By 1681 there were 1,400 Quakers in West Jersey and a 3rd Yearly Meeting was established. In 1702 the East Jersey government was surrendered to Queen Anne. The Quakers of East and West Jersey continued to have a large share in the management of the province. They were farmers and shopkeepers; they built ships on the Delaware and sent them out to the West Indies and to China. Elizabeth Haddon took over her father’s land and came to settle in the wilderness.
1… (Pennsylvania & Delaware)—PA was a planned, large scale colony. William Penn heard the Quaker Thomas Loe speak in Ireland, & was convinced of Quaker doctrine. He, with help & advice from experts, devised & wrote a Frame of Government intended to give liberty & responsibility to the people. He asked for & received a land-grant from King Charles II, who owed his father £16,000. On March 14, 1681 King Charles II signed the land charter. It was named Penn-Sylvania at the King's insistence, over William’s objections; he feared people would think he named it for himself. He worked on making his Frame of Government & writing an account of Pennsylvania province that would give prospective settlers an idea of what the country was like. Other ships & settlers went before him. Late in October, 1682, William Penn himself sailed up the Delaware.
Penn was able to stay only 2 years at this time, but when he left, there was a growing colony behind him, some 7,200 people. The Welsh came, and the Germans. When Penn came again in 1699, there were 14,000 people, only about half of them Quakers. For 70 years the Quakers kept control in Pennsylvania, and during that time it was the most prosperous and peaceful of all the 13 colonies.
1… (The 1st Migration, 1725-1775)—By 1700 there were 6 YMs in America. New Jersey, Delaware, & Pennsylvania were mostly Quaker colonies. Quakers were politically strong in Rhode Island, Maryland, & North Carolina. Between 1725 & 1775, there was a steady tide of migration flowing southward & westward. Eastern Virginians moved to Western Virginia; Nantucket, New Jersey & Pennsylvania Quakers poured into North Carolina. Daniel Boone was the son of Pennsylvania Quakers. From North Carolina he led settlers across the mountains into Kentucky & Missouri. At the end of the Revolution, there were about 50,000 Quakers in America.
1… (The Great Migration)—After the Revolution, Eastern & Southern Quakers swept into what became Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, & Michigan. By 1809 there were no Quakers in South Carolina & Georgia. The 4 main roads were the Kanwha Road, Kentucky (Cumberland) Road, the Poplar Gap & Flower Gap Road, & the Magadee Road. In 1835 the 1st Quaker in Iowa crossed the Mississippi. The 1st monthly meeting was established in 1838; the Yearly Meeting of 5 Quarterly Meetings was established in 1863. The Street Family migrated from Salem, NJ, to Salem, OH, to Salem, IN to Salem, IA. The number of Quakers in proportion to the whole population has greatly diminished. Splits over matters of doctrine, disowning anyone marrying a non-Quaker, & an attitude of protecting rather than sharing their doctrine led to the decline. What the Quakers gave to the US comes not from numbers or material possessions, but from Quaker ideals & the power which ideals gave to their lives.
Religion itself is nothing else than Love to God and Man.
Liberty without obedience is confusion and obedience without liberty is slavery.”
Any government is free to the people under it whatever be the frame, where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws.”
I propose … to leave myself and successors no power of doing mischief, that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole country. William Penn
2. Who the Quakers Were—George Fox’s eyes were amazingly blue and full of fire and tenderness. Wherever he went people felt his power, goodness, [and inspiring leadership]. There were in England many Seekers, seeking a religion that would satisfy them. They came from all levels of society. The ones 1st convinced were known as the “Valiant 70” or the 1st Publishers of Truth. They went out in pairs or groups to spread the good news. Most were [around Fox’s age] about 25 years old. The persecution which the 1st Quakers had to meet bound them together with an intense feeling of unity, love, shared suffering, and white-hot sincerity.
After the persecution passed, the Quakers changed. They no longer went into the world to spread faith, but withdrew to cherish it. With war, hate, & terror now in the world on a bigger scale, the Quakers have entered a new phase. They are coming out into the world, living out their message by relieving wherever they can the suffering they find. What is the Quaker belief’s central core that finds expression in the Quaker way of life?
War is wrong. Any kind of violence and hate is wrong. There is no need of a priest to mediate between God and man, or for a consecrated building in which to worship God. God speaks most clearly in the silence. All are equal in the sight of God. The Quakers believe taking hats off to persons of high station was an insincere and flattering custom. You could not be a Quaker in secret. Quakers did all things openly, in the light of truth. Quakers used thee and thou, the singular form, rather than you, the plural form to a person of distinction.
Out of the Quaker regard for truth arose another “testimony”; they would not take an oath. They believed it was misleading for people who had a tender regard for truth to swear on special occasions they were speaking the truth. In times of persecution this refusal to swear was used by the authorities as a way to catch and imprison Quakers. Quakers objected to the elaborate dress of the time, because they thought it wrong to spend so much on clothes, when some had far too little to wear, and because it was wrong to make so great a distinction between rich and poor. Accordingly the Quakers insisted upon simplicity in dress. Now they wear whatever is worn by others, avoiding spending a disproportionate amount of time or money on it.
Truth involved a number of things for Quakers, from death for the sake of truth to a small revolution in commercial methods. [Haggling and erratic pricing were a part of business in the 17th century]. Quaker shopkeepers said this was not honest. They set one price for everybody and stuck to it. Friends often “quaked” with the intensity of their feelings when they rose to speak. They called themselves: Children of the Light; Friends of God; Friends of the Truth. In time they adopted the name “Society of Friends. Love, truth, sincerity, simplicity, faithfulness unto death: these are the virtues the Quakers hold most precious and most strive to attain. And out of them their gifts to the US are given.
PART TWO: The Gifts of the Quakers
3. Toward a Democratic Constitution—It has been said that Quakerism is a “bold application of democracy to religion.” The Quakers applied democracy to religion when they decided that they did not need a minister or priest to mediate between themselves and God, and allowing anyone to speak in meeting. They were soon applying democracy to all their outward affairs too. William Penn was the proprietor (owner) of Pennsylvania. Penn and his successors could appoint the Governor, but the real power lay in the Assembly and Council elected by the people, not in the governor.
After the Declaration of Independence, all the newly independent colonies were very busy making themselves new constitutions, & all were influenced by PA’s Frame, and so was the Constitution of the United States. In PA, religious freedom involved not having a state church and in expressly stating that all who believed in God were free to worship as they pleased and to hold office. Another important feature of the PA Frame was that, if necessary, it could be changed. A 3rd feature was that in PA the Assembly broke up by law. That is, according to the law, it met at a certain time each year and adjourned when it voted to adjourn. Penn planned a league of nations in Europe 225 years before the world got around to trying it out, & he suggested a union of the American colonies in 1696, almost 100 years before the Constitution of the United States. In 1787 the independent states turned back to Penn’s plan of union and took from it some of the principles and some of the actual wording.
Except for William Penn, Governor Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island was the most important in politics and government. He was one of the 1st men to see the injustice of taxation without representation. Rhode Island 1st proposed a Continental Congress; Stephen Hopkins was a delegate to it. Another Friend who helped lead the colonies towards democracy was John Dickinson. He stood for the rights of the colonists, but he wished to win them by peaceful means. He was a member of the 1st and 2nd Continental Congresses, and a Delaware delegate to the Federal Constitutional Convention in 1787. Both Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin were not Quakers, but lived among them and were influenced by Quaker thought.
Among the Quaker ideals and principles written into the Constitution were: religious freedom and separation of church and state; Congress (Penn 1st used “congress” in 1696) convened and adjourned by law; 2 representatives from each state and ⅓ of the Senators to be elected every two year for a 6-year term; the affirma-tion as an alternative to the oath; provisions for amendment. The Quakers stood for and tried most of them for many years and found them to be successful.
4. Towards Liberty & Equality: The Indian Problem—Before he even came to the new country himself, William Penn wrote a letter of love to the Indians. He acknowledged the unkindness & injustice they suffered from whites; he promised he & the people he sent would be different. He refused to allow monopoly on trade with the Indians, because if he had accepted it, he couldn't have controlled trade. He wrote: “I wouldn't so defile that which came to me clean.” He bought land from the Indians, even though he had already bought it from the King. What was new about Penn’s approach to the Indians was his friendliness & his tender regard for them as, equals & friends. He dealt justly with them according to their ideas of justice as well as with white man’s justice.
In the fall of 1682, Penn met with the Indians in the great conference he promised them at Shackamaxon, near the Delaware River under a great elm tree. Good faith and good will was promised by both sides. So long as the Quaker influence was strong in Pennsylvania, the treaty was kept. For 70 years, Indian and Quaker relied on one another for hospitality; Quaker children were cared for by Indians. [Even when there was a reported threat of 500 warriors attacking the settlement, Quakers responded by sending a party of 6 unarmed men to the warriors gathering place. They found no warriors and only a minor dispute over unpaid money for land]. In New Jersey, Rhode Island, and South Carolina, Friends’ friendly policy ensured peace with the Indians.
The Indians were exploited by William Penn’s son Thomas (a non-Quaker) in the Walking Purchase. Thomas purchased as much land between the Nashaminy Creek & the Schuykill River as a man could walk in 1½ days. The man ran 88 miles instead of walking the 30 miles that the Indians expected. The Indians kept the bargain, but felt they had been treated unfairly. War broke out. When the Governor & Council of Pennsylvania declared war on the Indians in 1756, Quakers withdrew from government & ended their influence in government.
They opposed war & refused to pay war taxes. They said: “We will give a much larger part of our estate [to make peace] than the heaviest taxes of a war can be expected to require.” They formed the Friendly Associa-tion for Gaining & Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures, [which inspired the trust of some influential Indians]. In 1763 John Woolman had a “concern” to visit a settlement of Indians. [Even though Indians were on the warpath, he traveled unarmed in the wilderness with 4 guides & 1 white companion, stayed 3 days after delivering a message of love & friendliness. [A Quaker couple at 1st pulled in their latchstring (i.e. “locked the door”) but later put their trust in God & put the latchstring out; the Indians warriors passed over that cabin].
In 1795 the yearly meetings began to appoint standing committees on Indian affairs. Friends established missions and schools, and their committees tried to see that there was justice in the decisions which were made at Washington. A Philadelphian named Thomas Wistar was a great advocate of this peaceful method; he had gone among them and made friends. Friends formed the Associated Executive Committee of Friends on Indian Affairs, and the Indian Rights Association Philadelphia. President Grant asked these concerned Friends: “Give me the names of some Friends for Indian agents, and I will appoint them. If you can make Quakers out of the Indians it will take the fight out of them. Let us have peace.”
Friends were given charge of the Northern and Central Superintendencies. For the 8 years of Grant’s administration the Peace Policy and the Friends’ work among the Indians went steadily forward. The agents made peace between the tribes warring with one another. They taught them how to plow, plant, and harvest, generally advised them, and established schools for them. President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed a new commissioner of Indian affairs who was unfriendly [to both Indians and] Quakers. They met opposition at every turn and were forced to give up their government work; they kept their interest in the schools they started. [Quaker interest in the Indian and seeking justice for him continues]. The Friends’ management of Indian relations has provided 1 more example of the practicability of a policy of love and friendship in dealing with races whom we do not understand and whose ways are not our ways.
4… The Freeing of the Slaves—One of the most important gifts which Quakers gave to this country was the initial impulse against slavery. George Fox 1st saw slavery when he visited Barbados in 1671. He saw the fundamental evil of slavery even when the slaves were being kindly treated, & urged Friends to let their slaves go free after they had worked for a certain amount of time. He also thought they should “not go away empty-handed.” Germantown Friends wrote: “There is a liberty of conscience here which is right and reasonable, and there ought to be likewise liberty of the body.”
John Woolman, a Quaker tailor from Mt. Holly New Jersey was, more than any other, to put into words the wrong of slavery and to rouse people to work against it. From the time he had to prepare a bill of sale for a Negro woman to the end of his life, he devoted himself to freeing the slaves. He traveled all over the country and to England. He talked of slavery and the wrong of it, and caused other people to see it the same way he did. He also wrote the pamphlet “Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes” in 1746. Another Quaker against slavery at the same time was Anthony Benezet. He wrote on slavery to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Patrick Henry, John Wesley, and George Whitefield, and they wrote him back. He was one of the pillars of the 1st abolition society in America, founded in 1775; Ben Franklin was president.
Gradually all Friends saw that it wasn’t right for man to hold his fellow beings in slavery. By 1780 the practice of holding slaves had disappeared among the Quakers. That same year the Assembly of Pennsylvania passed the 1st law abolishing slavery in the State. By 1826 there 101 anti-slavery societies in the country, most of them in the South. The most important emancipation publication was Benjamin Lundy’s Genius of Universal Emancipation; it aroused William Lloyd Garrison to the cause. By 1827, slavery was abolished in the northern states.
Lucretia Mott organized a female anti-slavery society. She preached against slavery as a young woman & gave up things produced by slave labor [i.e. cotton & sugar]. In 1840 Lucretia & James Mott were sent by the American Antislavery Society as delegates to the London world convention. James could attend the convention; Lucretia couldn't. Meanwhile, the Friends in the South were having difficult times; their ideas were very unpopular. Laws were passed forbidding people to set slaves free. Some yearly meetings bought slaves & sent them to Canada or New England, where they set them free. Many Southern Friends pulled up stakes & went west.
The Underground Railroad started its work as far back as George Washington’s day; the system was going long before it had a name. When it became illegal to help slaves, many Friends obeyed the higher law of conscience when they broke the law against helping slaves to escape. Thomas Garret from Wilmington, DE was one of the foremost men in the Underground Railroad in the East. He helped 2,700 slaves to escape, and continued to do so even after court fines ruined him. James and Lucretia Mott’s home served as a station, too.
Vestal and Levi Coffin, North Carolina Friends who moved to IN were the great heroes of the movement in the West. He was known as “President” of the Underground Railroad. Levi and his wife were the Rachel and Simeon Halliday of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The poet John Whittier Greenleaf also did great work against slavery, editing the Pennsylvania Freeman, writing pamphlets, writing inspiring poems. After the War of Secession and the Emancipation Proclamation, a new problem was created, for 3,000,000 uneducated, untrained people were turned out into the world without property or resources of any kind. The Philadelphia Association maintained 47 schools, attended by 6,000 colored people. There is a vast amount yet to be done.
4… For Prison Reform—In William Penn’s day, prisoners were herded together in one room: sick; well; old; young; thieves; murderers; and innocent men. What food they got they had to pay for, and there was nothing to do. This was the punishment for small offense. For nearly 200 larger offenses, people were hanged.
Quakers saw 2 things: even convicted criminal has certain rights (e.g. healthful surroundings, [separation from “hardened criminals”); the chief purpose of imprisonment is reform not revenge. They did not believe in capital punishment at all. Penn eliminated all but 2 capital offenses (treason & murder) in PA. Nobody was imprisoned for debt. The prison was run & paid for by the state, & prisoners were to be kept busy, in good health, and trained. A New York Friend, Thomas Eddy did much to establish the 1st state prison in 1797 as a state senator; the 1st board of governors were almost all Friends; politics soon put them out of governing prisons.
4… Women’s Rights—In Friends’ meeting for worship women as well as men could speak. This reveals a recognition of the equality of men women before God that spreads into all departments of life. Women with a leading could go anywhere to carry the message of Quakerism. They went as wives and mothers who had other duties to perform besides those at home. They took an active part in the business of monthly and yearly meetings as a matter of course. Lucretia Mott preached in Philadelphia meeting when she was still a young woman, and pled for the right of women to speak in 1835.
When she couldn't speak at the London antislavery conference as a woman, she & Elizabeth Cady Stanton put together the 1st convention on women’s rights, which took place in 1848. The demanded the right to vote, the right to political office, equal rights to property, wages, custody of children, and making contracts. [Women now have these rights, with the right to vote coming in 1920. The roots of women’s rights can be found in] the generations of Quaker women before Lucretia Mott who took their place & responsibilities in their communities.
4 … Care of the Insane—The 18th century treatment of the mentally ill was cruel & inhuman, worse than the treatment of prisoners. It occurred to the Quakers to approach the mentally ill with kindness and love, using loving care, a peaceful atmosphere and easy, interesting work to do with their hands. The PA Hospital in Philadelphia (1756) made an effort to cure the insane. While they were kept in the cellar, they were given occupational therapy. Thomas Eddy, who worked with prisons, was treasurer and president of the NY Hospital. He established Bloomingdale Asylum. Frankford Asylum (PA) was started in 1817. [Their efforts are proof of the power of love and kindness in dealing with troubled people].
4 … Education—Penn’s Frame of Government included the provision that all children, girls & boys, should be taught a useful trade. It included the poor as well as the rich. When William Penn Charter School was established children whose parents couldn't pay were to be admitted free. Compulsory free education wasn't yet conceived of by anyone; Quakers prepared the way for it. In NY the Female Association opened a school for poor children in 1801. In 1805, the Public School Society was formed & soon had several free schools going. Quaker elementary schools in NY, NC, OH, IN, KS did much to shape the public school systems as they developed.
Friends have continued to maintain schools for their own children, and children of like-minded people. The ones still carrying on include: Westtown, George School, Oakwood, Germantown Friends School, Friends Central, and Friends Select in or near Philadelphia, as well as Friends schools in Washington, Baltimore, Wilmington, Haddonfield, Atlantic City, NYC, and Providence, RI. Several colleges were also established.
Quakers more than once have been the 1st to see something that others have come to see later, have made a small beginning which others carried on to a great completion. At Pendle Hill, near Philadelphia, a graduate school where students and faculty work together in true democratic way on social problems which the modern world is facing [was established in 1931]. Who can say what other schools may follow?
4… The Arts—So intent were Quakers on worshipping God & helping man that they overlooked the healing & inspiring power of great music & great art. They didn't realize that God speaks through a great symphony or a beautiful picture. The story in the future may be different. For 2½ centuries, Quakers have produced no great musicians or great artists. Benjamin West and Joseph Pennell are 2 Quaker contributors to American art.
Distinctive Quaker architecture, with its pent roofs and hooded doorways, has been much copied. There was a certain art in their home furnishings, and the quiet, ordered, comfortable life that went on within it. It didn't produce musicians, painters, sculptors, poets. John Greenleaf Whittier was very much a social activist, as well as a poet. His best-loved poem Snowbound tells of his boyhood experience shut up within a New England farmhouse in a snowstorm; “The Barefoot Boy” is another of his beloved poems. Prose contributions include: George Fox’s Journal; William Penn’s Some Fruits of Solitude; & modern writings by Rufus Jones. Quakerism produced the scientists John Bartram (botanist); Edward Drinker Cope (paleontologist); Thomas Godfrey (quadrant inventor). [Perhaps the other contributions are enough]; perhaps we should not ask for artists, too.
5. Toward Peace: They have Refused to Fight—Quakers have done [3] things for peace: they have refused to fight; they have tried to replace hate with love; they have tried to repair the harm done by war on both sides. While refusing to fight or pay war taxes, they gave more money than the taxes would have cost to the Friendly Association to make peace with the Indians. In the Revolutionary War Quakers didn't fight; those who did, some 400 from Philadelphia, were disowned. Quakers were hated as Tories and pacifists; 17 were “exiled” to Virginia.
During the War Between the States, a few Quakers in the South suffered imprisonment for their refusal. In the World War, a very few Quakers felt it their duty to join the army. Their meetings recognized disownment as a form of violence & didn't disown them, but left the decision to individual conscience. [One of the] great modern Quaker gifts to the peace and love cause is the American Friends Service Committee [AFSC, founded in 1917].
5 … They have Sought to Replace Hate with Love—Friends must not love one side and hate the other; they may not take sides and feel triumphant when one side wins. [The founding statement of the AFSC was]: “We are united in expressing our love for our country and our desire to serve her loyally. We offer our services to the Government of the US in any constructive way in which we can conscientiously serve humanity.”
Rufus M. Jone’s book, A Service of Love in War Time, tells the story of those war days. Quakers worked on farms in the US or on reconstruction in France. After the war 3 AFSC representatives went to Germany. English and American Friends provided money and supplies and directed the work, the Germans distributed the food. By June 1921, more than a million children and mothers were being fed every day. They left and came back in 1923, [when inflation drove the price of food beyond the reach of most families]. [The AFSC also went into Austria, Poland and Russia, to help with food, and to prevent tuberculosis from spreading]. Any enduring gift to peace [anywhere], however small, is a gift to the US.
Quakers have tried to remove the causes of violence between the white race & the other races in the country by treating the Indians fairly & lovingly, by freeing Negroes & opening up opportunities to them, & by helping those in prison. They have not yet fully succeeded, but they have pointed the way and they are still working.
Another cause of violence is lack of understanding between [wage-earners & employers]. [There is enough personal contact between employer & worker in small businesses that they can] make allowances & help each other. [The same possibility doesn’t exist in corporations]. The AFSC Home Service Section works for groups in the US, like out-of-work coal miners in PA, KY., WV., & TN. [Communities such as Arthurdale, WV, Tygart Valley, WV, Fayette County, PA were set up to teach miners gardening & how to make & sell crafts.
Since 1934 Friends have been running Work Camps in the summers, to bring about understanding between people who otherwise would not know one another. Work Camps of highschool and college age boys and girls settle in a community for 2 months and do a full day’s work 6 days a week on some improvement which the community needs and could not otherwise afford to have; [everybody benefits].
The AFSC Interracial Section has been working for good feeling & understanding among different races in this country. In December 1938, 3 Friends went to Germany to ask the cooperation of the German government in helping Jewish refugees. [They couldn't have gone without the German memory of Quaker help given 20 years before]. Democracy is made up of the free gifts of free people working together for the good of all.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
About the Author—Hope Luder has been teaching high school history for several years and some college teaching. She stayed several months with a Mexican family, who like her simply for being a Quaker. The current issues of the women’s movement, including the problems of sex roles have sparked her interest in “Women and U.S. History.” She found that her oral report aroused much interest in her non-Quaker class.
Early Quaker Beliefs—The number of socially active women in the Society of Friends has been out of proportion to its size. Lucretia Mott & Susan B. Anthony came from Quaker backgrounds. [Others mentioned here include:] Mary Dyer; Mary Fisher; Elizabeth Fry; & the Grimké sisters. Why did Quakerism produce so many outstanding women? From its beginnings, Quakerism asserted that women were equal to men [spiritually]. The valuable support George Fox received from Margaret Fell & Elizabeth Hooten must have made him conscious of the potential contribution of women to the movement. This & other “peculiar” customs led to persecution of Quakers. They survived due to a spirit of equality combined with effective organization.
George Fox’s “that of God in every man,” implies the spiritual equality of all people. He believed there could be new insights beyond what was in the Bible; that the same spirit which was in Jesus continued to reveal itself and was to be emphasized more than the letter of the law. [Where] Eve’s part in the fall was used to justify women’s inferior status, Fox claimed that now is the time of the spirit, not the time of the Fall. [Eve’s status should be that existing before the Fall]. [When confronted with a verse calling for women’s silence, Margaret pointed to another verse referring to women praying and prophesying and being generally helpful. Fox also comments that the men need not fear anyone [women] getting over them; for the power and spirit of God gives liberty to all. For over 200 years the Quakers seem to have been virtually alone in disregarding Paul’s directive.
Quaker Opportunities for Women—Every position in Quakerism's organization was open to women. A local meeting might have several ministers. [All could speak in meeting,] but recognized ministers tended to do more of the speaking. Outside of Friends, women’s preaching was considered to be shockingly immodest & unnatural. Women’s activity as traveling ministers was particularly shocking. A Meeting would often consult the spouse before granting permission & might put pressure on a reluctant husband. A Woman elder might seem as offensive as preaching, but it drew less attention. An elder was “recognized” & had considerable moral authority.
Business meetings were held separately for men & women; the Women’s Meeting was clerked by a woman. Old meeting houses had movable partitions used for business meeting & removed for [silent worship]. George Fox believed that women would feel freer to play a constructive part in the meeting if they met separately. A request for marriage had to be read 1st before the Women’s meeting. The authority of women’s meetings generally wasn't equal to that of the men’s meetings. The men of one Rhode Island Meeting protested that giving men the final decision on some matters set up a preeminence “where the truth admits of none.” Quaker women were subject to the same unequal laws, [but more Quaker women were educated than Non-Quaker women].
Quaker marriage ceremonies never included a vow of obedience or “giving away the bride.” Despite the partial & ambiguous nature of the Quaker woman’s equality, the difference between her position & that of other women must have had great effect on the scope of her interests & on her confidence in herself. The dignity, self-assurance, and seriousness of many Quaker women must have been a strong example to be set [for any woman].
Quaker Women of the Early Period—The numbers, enthusiasm, and energy of early women converts to Quakerism give the impression of an explosion of released energy in people who have a long-needed outlet for their conviction and talents. The women often aroused more hatred from mobs and magistrates, and were more severely punished than the men. Foremost among George Fox’s converts was Margaret Fell, who helped early Friends in the North of England. In Fox’s later ministry she became his wife [and wholehearted] “helpmeet.” She shared the hazards of the faith, including a 4-year prison term. George and Margaret Fell spent only about 6 of their 20 years of marriage together. Toward the end of her long life, Margaret Fell Fox wrote some epistles directed against the quietist tendencies. [Her opinion of plain dress was]: “This is a silly poor gospel.”
Elizabeth Hooten was a middle-aged married woman living comfortably when she was converted. At the age of 70 she was severely punished for appearing at the Massachusetts Colony a 2nd time. [She made several more trips after this, dying during one of them]. The most noted traveler of all the early Quakers was a pretty ex-servant girl named Mary Fisher. She traveled to, was punished and ejected from Massachusetts, and traveled to the Sultan of Turkey with a message from God. She later married and settled down in South Carolina.
Massachusetts Bay's intolerant policies resulted in 4 Quaker deaths; they were hanged in Boston Common. 1 of the 4 was Mary Dyer, who refused to leave the colony again. Elizabeth Harris traveled in Maryland, where she successfully introduced Quakerism. Elizabeth Haddon went to America as a young woman to “serve the Lord’s people” in the wilderness. She married John Estaugh, & lived happily with him for many years.
18th Century Quietism and 19th Century Reform—Many people were “disowned” by meetings [for what now seem like petty reasons] during the quietistic period of the 18th century. One of the best known of this period’s traveling ministers was Rebecca Jones. With the development of reform movements, women began to find opportunities to contribute to society. The quietistic phase came gradually to an end during the 19th century. Many women contributed in a variety of ways to the changes going on within Quakerism. [When Hannah Barnard questioned some of what was found in the Bible, she became the subject of bitter persecution and intense partisan debate]. Probably the most outstanding of the women involved in the Awakening was Elizabeth Comstock; she was involved in prison reform, the Underground Railroad and relief for Negro refugees. She effectively appealed to young Quakers to become active in the issues of the day.
Both England and America had Quaker women help petition and organize for Women’s Rights. The most famous of all English reformers was Elizabeth Fry, champion of prison reform. She not only transformed Newgate Prison, but visited many prisons and convict ships. She established Ladies’ Committees for visiting prisons all over England and Europe. She was criticized even by other Quakers for neglecting her large family. Her achievements were held up as proof of women’s potential, and as showing that women could do some things better than men. A Scottish Duke wrote: “She was . . . a majestic woman . . . Over the whole countenance was an ineffable expression of sweetness, dignity and power.”
The Emancipation of Negroes—More American Quaker women became famous for the service in reforms than in England because [working “pioneer”] women weren't as restricted in the New World. Most American women reformers were involved in the emancipation of Negroes, the Women’s Rights Movement, or both. Quakers had been the 1st religious group in the English colonies to show corporate concern over slavery. John Woolman is well known among Friends for raising this issue; Sarah Harrison was also successful in getting many Quakers to free slaves. Many Quakers were involved in the Underground Railroad, sometimes whole families.
Laura Haviland of Michigan was known as “Superintendent of the Underground.” Laura & her husband founded Raisin Institute in 1837, probably the 2nd school in the US to have black & white students. During the Civil War she worked at distributing clothing to Negro refugees, and inspecting hospitals, soup kitchens, and an infamous prison. Another venturesome Quaker woman took on the task of battlefield nurse. Cornelia Hancock was often the first or only woman to reach a dangerous area of the front, sometimes against regulations. After the Civil war she went to Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina to found one of the 1st schools for Negroes in the South. Later she became one of the 1st social workers, helping to found two societies to aid families and children.
Prudence Crandall tried for 1½ years to educate black girls in Canterbury, Connecticut. Martha Scofield, took over a school for Negroes in Aiken, South Carolina, & made it successful against great odds. She preached on literacy's value, & selected black teachers to replace white ones in her school as rapidly as possible.
Lucretia Mott—She was a connecting link between the Anti-Slavery & the Women’s Rights Movement. Lucretia’s serene & ladylike looks & behavior, devotion to principle, & utter respectability, made it difficult to subject her to the criticism & ridicule that was heaped on reformers & feminists. She founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. With calm presence of mind Lucretia faced ugly mobs in dangerous situations.
The Seneca Falls Convention called by Lucretia Mott & Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1848, marked the Women’s Rights Movement's beginning. [She inspired Elizabeth Cady Stanton to believe that] “I had the same right to think for myself that Luther, Calvin, & Knox had.” James Mott served as chairman, & whole-heartedly supported his wife’s endeavors. A Declaration of the Rights of Women became a program for the Movement; other conventions soon followed. Only Charlottee Woodward lived to vote in a national election over 70 years later. She said: “Every fibre of my being rebelled all the hours I sat & sewed gloves for a pittance which, as it was earned, could never be mine. I wanted to work, but I wanted to choose my task collect my wages.
Lucretia Mott’s ideas appeared in an influential pamphlet called A Discourse on Women. She points out that lack of educational and other opportunities for growth and development are paralyzing to a woman’s mind, and make many women “hug their chains.” [She also said:] “Were women the abject thing the law considers her to be when married, she would not be worthy the companionship of man.” She once said of herself, “I am a much overrated woman—it is humiliating.”
The Women’s Rights Movement—The Quaker contribution to the Women’s Rights Movement is remarkable. The interest of Friends in women’s rights predates the Movement. 3 Quaker colleges—Guilford, North Carolina (1837), Earlham (1848), and Swarthmore (1869)—were among the first to provide equal education for women. Sarah and Angelina Grimké were the 1st American women to lecture for women’s rights, and almost the first to speak in public at all. Angelina was the first woman to testify before a legislative body. The sisters were condemned by many, especially the clergy, and underwent much agonized soul-searching over their defiance of convention. Perhaps the most controversial occasion of their careers was a public debate on slavery between the Grimkés and 2 Massachusetts men. Angelina wrote: “our womanhood . . . seems more objectionable than our abolitionism.” Abby Kelley Foster was also an abolitionist and also faced the ostracism of friends, and vilification by clergy; she was disowned by Quakers who disapproved of her militant activities.
As can be seen in the lives of the Grimkés & Abby Kelley, the anti-slavery movement helped begin the Women’s Rights Movement. [Working for the rights of others pointed out how rights were being denied women]. Maria Mitchell served as President of the Association for the Advancement of Women, which she helped found. She commanded respect from those who applauded her dignity, logic, & clear thinking. Her personality was blunt & humorous, with a lot of outspoken individualism; she left Friends because their disownment policy.
For close to half a century the team of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony headed the Women’s Rights Movement. Susan B. Anthony said, “In this country everyone may vote save idiots, lunatics, convicts, & women, & I don’t like the class I’m in.” Susan B. Anthony identified strongly with Quakerism, and relied on her Quaker father’s sympathy & support. Susan’s indomitable determination held firm through many discouraging years. She herself, after being despised & derided, became famous in old age, recognized as a person of great ability. At the turn of the 20th century, the Women’s Rights Movement still had Quaker participants. Alice Paul was a Quaker social worker who co-authored the Equal Rights Amendment, 1st introduced to Congress in 1923.
Conclusion—Historians have often pointed out that Quakerism has had an influence out of proportion to its numbers. The contribution of Quaker women provides a striking example of the importance of environment in encouraging or discouraging individual achievement. For over 2 centuries the Society of Friends was the only well-known religious group to give women a chance to speak in public. Quaker girls grew up in an atmosphere which & among women role models who encouraged them to become capable & self-confident adults. What is the history of women’s bearing on the future? Surely the Society of Friends’ historic & continuing tendency to treat people as individuals, rather than in male or female roles, still has a contribution to make in our world now.
I am Abraham, Jacob, and Esau/ I am Joseph and his brothers./ I am Peter who denies,/ Thomas who doubts,/ And Judas who betrays. I am also the nameless, faceless, [beloved] disciple.
227. Woman Ministers; a Quaker Contribution (by Robert J. Leach; 1979)
About the Author—Robert J. Leach is 8th generation New Englander, whose connections with Martha’s Vineyard & Nantucket are strong. He served as first Secretary for Pendle Hill Publications (1939-1942). As Chairman of the history department at the Écolè Internationale de Genève, he has traveled worldwide in the interests of international education. Bob has been clerk and historian, & is now elder for Geneva Monthly Mtg.
Preface (by Ruth A. Blattenberger)—A change in attitude regarding women in the ministry has evolved slowly during the 2nd half of the 20th century. In 1978 the National Council of Churches (NCC) released a statement showing that less than ½ of the churches in the US ordain women. Quakerism, on the other hand, has always encouraged women preachers. Traditionally this ministry rose out of a response to the Inward Light existing in all persons, regardless of sex; only a minority of pastoral ministers have been women. The women in Robert Leach’s study all belong to the unprogrammed tradition. Howard Brinton said: “Since the 17th century there has been evidence of a continuing trend in Protestant sects toward the Quaker position (experiential religion).”
[Introduction]—Both laywomen, and I as a layman feel discomfort in an ecumenical situation. As a prophetic ministry, [Quakerism faces] the old conflict of prophet versus priest. Professionalism is a serious obstacle for women in most Christian denominations. Women’s access to the professional ministry does not appear to have become any easier. Women have been recognized as ministers by the Society of Friends since the time of its beginnings. Traditionally Friends have had grave reservations about the paid ministry. Our loyalty to unprogrammed meetings is a heritage of primary importance. Because everyone is illumined by the Holy Spirit, the spoken ministry is, of course, not limited to men. George Fox said: “I came up by the flaming sword to the place where Adam stood before he fell,” [i.e.] Fox did not believe that Adam’s sin was inherited. Fox found man and woman equal before God, and defended women preachers.
Pioneering & justifying women’s roles—In 1652, Margaret Fell met Fox; she heard him preach in the Ulverston church near her home. She was powerfully convinced & said: “We are all thieves; we have taken the Scriptures in words, & know nothing of them in ourselves.” Margaret Fell was imprisoned several times, beginning in 1664, & forfeited her estate; later her term was reduced to 4 years, during which she wrote several books, including Women’s Speaking Justified. She protested that in rejecting woman’s preaching they rejected the Holy Spirit and power that spoke in her.
Margaret Fell gave stability to the Quaker movement before it was organized. Her home functioned as the scattered group's center. With Fox she was instrumental in establishing an organization. To record ministers, a meeting would write a minute saying, “We recognize this gift in the ministry.” [A recorded minister] or public Friend was expected to resign from all committees in order to be free to travel, [including across the Atlantic]; mostly, 2 would travel together.
Carrying Gospel Abroad/ Discrepancies in equality—Elizabeth Hooton was George Fox’s 1st convert; she was middle-aged when Fox was 22. She left her family when she was 61 for the 1st of 2 journeys to New England. The Puritans didn't let her disembark, but she went to Virginia & managed to return to Massachusetts. She was punished inhumanely, & imprisoned. She returned to England & was imprisoned again. Armed with king’s permission, which served as a landing permit, she returned with her daughter in 1664. In Cambridge, she was brutally punished again & left in the wilderness. Later she accompanied Fox to Jamaica, where she died. Another early Friend was Mary Fisher, servant of a family which converted as a group. After rough treatment in Massachusetts, she was graciously received by the Grand Turk, Sultan Mohammed IV in 1658.
My research suggests a double standard. Women had a secondary position, even though men’s meetings & women’s meetings were set up with the intent of being equal. The difference in inequality is seen in the history of Friends on Nantucket Island. Even though the Meeting was started by Mary Starbuck’s invitation to all who wished to come in silent waiting on the Lord, the meeting was formally approved by men in 1708 as a men’s meeting. The Women’s Yearly Meeting in New England came into existence in 1764 largely because of Nantucket women who operated so effectively while the men were away; most major decisions were handled by men.
Patterns of Change—Generally speaking, the women involved in Friends’ ministries during the first ½ century of Quakerism were humble in origin. The women generally had little involvement away from their homes, & little schooling. Even men’s education was minimal among Friends at this time. During the 18th century, the Society “settled in” as it withdrew from public life. Many families became part of the merchant class. While some women became involved in social mission; many desired to stay within their homes, so domesticity did not carry with it a stigma of deprivation. Though by this time many meetinghouses had been built, certain meetings for worship were still held in private houses. Swarthmore Hall became a center for Friends in northern England, while Mary Starbuck’s Parliament House was a center for Quakers in the New World. Quietism (submission to the Divine Will) pervaded the Society during the 1700s, continuing into the 1880s.
The Hicksite & Orthodox Separation in 1827 was into groups of quietist & evangelicals with their programmed ministry; women were prominent in both groups. Catherine Phillips (1726-1794) & Rebecca Jones (1739-1818) are examples of traveling quietist ministers [who warned against priest-craft, ritual, & inefficacious ceremonies]. These quietist ministers referred to the Bible, but felt Biblical texts must be interpreted through the Light within. Rebecca Jones’ ministry was of the Word, but full of social overtones. The evangelical & British Hannah Kilham (1774-1832) had a dream of an international missionary community in Africa. Great dissension was roused by her plan for Gambia because of its evangelical nature, not because of her sex. The decision-making was the men’s duty & privilege, while the many members of the Ladies societies did the actual work.
Pivotal Time: new thrusts and awarenesses—By the mid-19th century, the climate was ripe for the vigorous spirit and charming personality of Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) to open the way for more women’s rights. Her Quaker heritage now discouraged women Friends from speaking in public or addressing non-Quaker gatherings. Lucretia had a limited but adequate education for teaching school. But the role of abolitionist early captured her energies. Her meeting nearly disowned her, as some pacifist Friends feared that radical abolitionist activities might lead to war. Her keen mind and serene composure in confronting outbursts of angry pro-slavery people was demonstrated on at least 2 occasions. The exclusion of women from an international anti-slavery congress [aroused her interest in emancipation for women]; her speaking inspired Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Uniqueness of Friends' ministry/ A special contribution—Various Quaker ministries include speaking through the silence, the voicing of a concern, & speaking to another’s condition. Silence is part of every unprogrammed meeting for worship. Sometimes meetings are totally silent. Out of meeting for worship may grow a heartfelt concern. A concern is sometimes so light-filled [& clearly meant for others] that he/ she is led to speak.
Prayer has a very special significance to me. It is an important part of the ministry of the Society of Friends, although not exercised now as much as formerly. Anna Brinton (1887-1969) was at her best in the ministry of the spoken word. She was of the tradition of those who prayed on her knees. [One of her prayers started with]: “We give thanks for the things that change not in the midst of man’s confusion, for the beauty of the world and the upholding strength of household affection.” For many years she was a forceful presence at Pendle Hill, the directorship of which she shared with her husband. Anna was unusually effective in anything she set out to do. A very great woman in many ways, she went anywhere that a need existed. She got from one end of China to the other by making arrangements on the spur of the moment.
Co-participation of men’s and women’s groups—The 1st combined monthly meetings of women & men happened in 1868 on Nantucket, [mostly because of decreased membership]. The London Young Friends Association didn't merge their separate men’s & women’s meeting until 1920. In 1941, at a Conservative Friends Meeting, the men & women still met separately, & women asked permission before addressing the whole meeting. On the other hand, women seemed to dominate a Quaker group during the 30 years that Jane Palen Rushmore (1864-1958) was General Secretary of the Hicksite branch of the Philadelphia YM. She put much effort into bringing the 2 Philadelphia YMs together after more than a century of the Hicksite-Orthodox separation.
Current liberation/Universality of cultural patterns—Elise Boulding (1920-2010) is a modern friend with strong academic credentials; she has an important career in sociology & interests in community action & peacemaking's dynamics. She has a special feeling for the Catholic church. She lived for 5 months in New York City, where she was tremendously affected by John Haynes Holmes (pastor) & Catherine de Hueck (director of a social work center). In her pamphlet Born Remembering (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #200), she writes of learning to live a new rhythm, [which includes extended retreats]. On weekends she joined her husband & other family members, attends meetings with them, or they visit her. As an activist Elise is drawn to women’s liberation. The strong, independent Quaker woman in our modern day has often joined herself to the women’s liberation movement. Some of its protest [includes] no male element at all when obviously both elements are essential.
The concept of spirituality as both male & female is dealt with in Pendle Hill Pamphlet #191, Feminine Aspects of Divinity, by Ermine Huntress Lantero; she said: “In the Friends lifestyle, a rare degree of equality between men & women was insured by their realistic acknowledgements of ‘that of God’ in every human being.” [Neither primitive South Pacific, nor sophisticated Far-Eastern cultures can find satisfaction with a sole masculine deity. Buddhist and Chinese both see a combination of male and female aspects in the fully realized human being. Lantero interprets [the Old Testament] God as generative Spirit which mothers the world into being in the creation story in Genesis. The New Testament phenomena may be interpreted as an expression of Wisdom/Spirit.
[Conclusion]—Current efforts by & for women & increased recognition of masculine-feminine attributes of [foreign deities] are causing Christian ecumenical groups to reexamine the issue of women in ministry. The early Friends mentioned here established a firm foundation for women’s presence in the ministry by declaring women could speak for themselves & carry God’s message far & near; they earned increasing respect through the years. But Friends haven't always granted equality to women in administrative & decision-making roles.
Today we find Friends participating in ecumenical groups locally and internationally. Some women friends do work with ease in the ecumenical world [e.g. Blanche Shaffer (FWCC), Tayeko Yamanouchi, and Ingeborg Borgstrom, Jean Zaru (WCC), and Lydia Stokes (NCC). Both women and men share the gifts of the spirit, and we feel that a society which accepts unequivocally the lay ministry provides a special encouragement for its members to grow in wisdom and stature. It would be desirable if the clergy in ecumenical groups would accept women in the full role of ministry. Women sense a lack of acceptance, and seek a deeper understanding of their position. It is hoped that in this situation the constancy of Friends’ ongoing witness to the prophetic ministry, and its implications in regard to women as ministers, may serve as a helpful guidepost.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
About the Author—Only those of us who have seen Howard chop wood would envisage him as at home on a farm. He grew up in the rolling countryside of Pennsylvania’s Chester County. Undergraduate days at college took him only as far as Haverford. Graduate work and teaching took him to Harvard, Earlham, Guilford, and Mills College in California. He and Anna returned to PA when they became co-directors of Pendle Hill in 1936. In this pamphlet, Howard leads us back into the serene landscape of his childhood and youth.
Introduction—My ancestors for 8 generations have been country Friends, so I have a special interest in them. Because of the nature of life in the country, they were able to examine each other’s conduct more minutely. In Part II of this pamphlet I have included quotes from the monthly business meeting minutes. These minutes give us a detailed account of how Friends took care of each other.
Country Friends were more individualistic and unconventional than city Friends. [The countryside population] within 50 miles of Philadelphia was almost entirely Quaker for PA’s 1st 100 years; city Quakers were surrounded by different sects. [The Scotch Irish on the frontier] made it difficult for the Quaker government to deal pacifically with the Indians. I have worked largely from original manuscripts and have secured some quotes from an essay by William T. Sharpless, 250 Years of Quakerism at Birmingham (Birmingham Friends; 1940)
Part I: [Early Advices; Meetings; Ministers & Elders]—Though the real lags behind the ideal in terms of early Quaker theology & philosophy, in the early rural Quaker communities the ideal & real were close together. [Quakers believed in making efforts towards literally following Jesus’ commandments]. The code of behavior for 18th century Quakers was A Collection of Christian & Brotherly Advices…by the New Jersey & Pennsylvania Yearly Meetings (YM). [The word “rules” would indicate a standard] so rigid that the Holy Spirit couldn’t reveal new truth [by which] advices might be revised. Queries regarding Negroes [evolved beginning in 1743 from questioning importation & buying imported slaves, through buying any slaves, to holding any slaves & seeing to the needs of those set free in 1776. Subsequent advices concerned Negro education]. This book contained Advices on 48 subjects in alphabetical order, beginning with Arbitrations, & ending with Wills.
Meetings met for worship both morning & afternoon on 1st Day (Sunday) & once in the middle of the week. The monthly meeting (MM)—[made up of 10 or 20 families]—met for business to consider & carry out the advices of the yearly meeting. Meetings in Penn’s Chester, Philadelphia, & Bucks Counties were united in quarterly meetings in each county. Quarterly meetings came together annually to form a YM. 6 YMs existed in the colonies: New England; New York; Philadelphia (PA & NJ); Maryland; Virginia; & North Carolina.
In the Quaker business meeting, the only official was a clerk appointed to decide what business should come before the meeting & to record its decisions. Men & women were equal in Quaker meetings for business, though the meeting was for many years divided into a man’s meeting & a women’s meeting. All decisions were reached unanimously. The objection of a single, respected member could prevent a decision from being made.
John Fiske wrote: “The ideal of the Quakers was flatly antagonistic to that of the [Puritan] settlers of Massachusetts. [They differed on matters of Judaism, separation of Church and State, and tolerance of difference in doctrine.] For these reasons the arrival of a few Quakers in Boston in 1656 was considered an act of invasion.” The Quakers were trying to be like the Christians of the 1st century. The Quakers recognized as prophets persons who spoke in meeting only when they felt themselves to be inspired; they were called ministers.
If after 2 years, a member of a meeting should speak & the messages were approved, the meeting would make a minute acknowledging him or her an approved minister, [able to sit in a ministers & elders meeting]. Such ministers could visit other meetings, & could be accompanied by other Friends. Nearly all Quaker journals, the spiritual autobiographies of Friends, were written by ministers. “Solid” or “weighty” Friends chosen to advise ministers were called elders. Persons were appointed to ensure proper behavior & to show special concern for members’ economic welfare; these were overseers. Meetings kept no membership lists except when a monthly meeting divided. Early on the Society had no officials; many Friends felt that each person should follow one’s own light. After Fox’s death, appointing ministers & elders was meant to introduce some organization.
[Separation, Queries, American Beginnings]—Just as in the early Christian Church elders & presbyters became priests & suppressed prophets, the Quaker elders’ increasing power to regulate the ministers’ theology [led to a rebellion which brought the Separation of 1827]. Designation of ministers & elders declined by the 20th century. Philadelphia YM now has directed MM to appoint committees on Worship & Ministry whose special concern is the religious life of the meeting, doing the work of ministers & elders, without the authority. Minutes of monthly meeting no longer contain items regarding the daily and family life of the members.
Although the MM is not the interdependent community it used to be, the yearly meeting brings together more attenders then was formerly possible, because of ease of travel. YMs still issue advices for the guidance of monthly meetings. Answers return to YM through quarterly meetings. The 1st queries to be answered systematically in this way were inserted in the book of Advices (a.k.a. Book of Discipline) in 1755.
[The subject of these 1st queries were]: attendance & behavior at meeting for worship; maintenance of love & unity; quick resolution of differences; plainness of speech, behavior, apparel, reading of Scripture; excessive use of liquor, frequenting of taverns; necessities of poor Friends; proper proposals of marriage; marriage contrary to our Discipline; rights of children by former marriages; faithful testimony against oaths, priest’s wages, military service, not paying taxes, & lotteries; timely making of wills; importing or buying, fairly treating negroes; living within circumstances & wise business practices; meeting transfers by certificate; judging of offending members in the Authority of Truth. Offenders could appeal MM decisions to QM & YM. Those who violated the advices of disciplines might be disowned; that was put off as long as possible. Penn’s Holy Experiment can be observed most intimately in the Book of Advices. The Book grew gradually & reached its most complete form in 1762. The Quakers stressed obedience to God’s authority, benevolence, & sensitivity to other’s needs.
William Brinton sailed up Delaware, checked the land office, traveled about 24 miles through the forest to a point near the Brandywine. They lived in a cave the 1st winter & were fed by Indians. It wasn’t easy to farm, & there was no time to build a house of worship; they took turns holding meeting in their homes. Not all who fled from England did so with the support of their old meeting; some were accused of “coveting worldly liberty.”
Part II: [Simplicity; Anger & Tale-bearing]—The following quotations from minute books of monthly meetings are contemporary with actions they describe. Simplicity (1734) “Friends, if truth be kept to, none will need to be at a loss what to Wear [or what Fashion]; Truth will teach all. Truth will lead those who obey, out of all Excess, Superfluities, & Worldly Superfluities. [Any] liberty which the World Spirit leads into a false Liberty which leads into Bondage. True Religion stands in that which sets a limit to the Mind, with Respect to Clothes, & other things. [Any] Excess is a certain token, the Mind is got loose, & isn't subject to Divine Power in which true Religion stands. [Other excesses mentioned include: hoop skirts; names & dates on coffins; furniture].
Anger & Tale-bearing (1737) Discourage them from Evil & Extravagant Speaking, Slandering, & Tale-bearing, which lead to sow strife… [Harsh, foolish words spoken to people in general & to a particular person were acknowledged & a “desire through divine assistance to live in unity” is stated. Sometimes meeting’s best efforts aren’t sufficient to “bring one to sight & sense of one’s condition,” one is at odds & contentious to the meeting. Sometimes Friends will realize the falsehood of things repeated & confess it in meeting minutes].
Temperance; Magic and Science—Temperance (1706) Advised … that none accustom themselves to vain and idle Company, Sipping and Tippling of Drams, and Strong Drink in Inns or Elsewhere. Such as use that Evil Practice, [but not to great excess], yet they often inflame themselves thereby, so as to become like Ground fitted for the Seeds of the greatest Transgressions. Stephen Beakes is charged with being “disguised” by strong drink. “[If one] is willing fully to condemn his demeanor, the meeting [will] defer testifying against him.”
Magic & Science (1723) If any professing Truth, shall apply to such person or persons who pretend Knowledge to discover things hiddenly transacted, or tell where things are lost, we do, in just Abhorence of such Doings, direct that Offenders be Speedily dealt with, & brought under Censure. Those who profess Astrology, tend to dishonor God & reproach Truth, & the great hurt both of themselves & those who inquire of them. Whether we have much of this world or not; whether we get of it or not: whether we lose or not lose, everyone being in his place, using his or her honest & Christian endeavors; we shall be content with success of our labors without unlawful looking of what the event of this or that may be. The Quakers from the first accepted science along with their religion. Quaker farmers had scientific hobbies—botany, astronomy, geology, ornithology. Many farmers were well-educated, and necessarily self-educated, since the meeting schools taught only the 3 “R”s.
Acknowledgment; Arbitration—Acknowledgment (1743) It is the sense of this Meeting, that in such cases the Offenders do attend the Monthly Meeting together with their Papers of Condemnation in such cases, where it is practicable. The acknowledgement of an offense was read to the meeting by the offender. “Dear Friends, I have disregarded the teaching of grace and good counsel of my exercised parents and have given way to undue liberty which is a great sin against my maker. I entreat Friends to pass by my offenses as far as in them lieth, desiring to be continued in some degree under their care…” (Sarah Colvert, Goshen, c. 1740) Acknowledgements were made even when the offender attempted to do a just act using non-Quaker methods.
Arbitration It was contrary to the discipline for Friends to resort to a court and to appeal to the law in order to settle differences. (1724) Advise that Differences be Ended with Speed, by prudent and just Arbitration. [Friends were chosen to hear and determine the said differences. “It was agreed that T.B. and J. H. … do speak with John Gibbons and his wife … and work upon them to come again to meetings endeavoring also to make them sensible of the love and care of Friends towards them.” (Concord, 1685)
Marriages; Help for Those in Need—Marriage: The monthly meeting had oversight of marriages, giving its consent & seeing to it that the parents' consent was obtained. The prospective bride & groom appeared twice before the monthly meeting to express their intention. Sometimes the parent wouldn’t give their consent but the meeting would. Trafficking in slaves prevented the meeting from having “freedom to suffer his proposal to pass.” The meeting had concern for a remarrying widow’s children, [requiring provisions be made for them].
Help for Those in Need [Hardships caused by Indians were addressed by different meetings in 1697 and 1725. Poor and destitute non-Quakers were helped by Friends. Bradford, Falls, Goshen and Wilmington Meetings dealt with specific needs for specific Friends and their families in 1701, 1703, 1719, 1731, 1739, 1759, & 1775. John Martin asked Philadelphia Meeting for a pair of breeches. He left his farm to the meeting to be used to help Friends in need. The present annual income from the John Martin fund is now more than $50,000. There were special circumstances which enabled these country Friends to practice a high standard of behavior, & in conduct came very near the Sermon on the Mount. Many of the early Friends eventually emigrated to other parts of the country and carried their high standards with them as a powerful, hidden influence on American life.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
Comments
Post a Comment