THE 
 
 MESSAGE AND MISSION 
 OF QUAKERISM 
 
 y WILLIAM C. BRAITHWAITE and 
 HENRY T. HODGKIN, M.A., M.B. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924081814513 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 081 814 513 
 
THE 
 
 MESSAGE AND MISSION 
 OF QUAKERISM 
 
 By 
 WILLIAM C. BRAITHWAITE 
 
 and 
 HENRY T. HODGKIN. M.A.. M.B. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY DIRECTION OF THE 
 FIVE YEARS MEETING 
 
 philadelphia 
 
 The John C. Winston Company 
 
 1912 
 
coptkight, 1912, bt 
 The John C. Winston Co. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The two addresses which compose this 
 book were deUvered at the Five Years 
 Meeting of the Society of Friends held in 
 IndianapoUs, Indiana, from October 15th 
 to 22nd, 1912. They were listened to with 
 profound interest and appreciation, and 
 were approved by a Minute which also 
 ordered their pubUcation, in order that the 
 wider group of Friends, and all others who 
 are interested in the message and mission of 
 a rehgion of this type, might have the op- 
 portunity to read them. It is a plain duty 
 of any religious body to put its truths into 
 circulation, and to reinterpret again and 
 again the vital principles by which its 
 members live and work. Here in this little 
 book will be found in convenient form a 
 fresh and illuminating expression of the 
 truths, principles and ideals of present-day 
 Quakerism and some of the practical prob- 
 lems confronting the modern 1 world which 
 the application of these truths, principles 
 
 3 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 and ideals might solve. The reader will 
 discover that the writers live in the 
 Twentieth Century and that they are 
 "speaking to the condition" of the age. 
 
 RuFus M. Jones. 
 
 Haverford, Pennsylvania 
 12th mo. 9th, 1912 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE ESSENTIALS OF QUAKERISM 
 BY WILLIAM C. BRAITHWAITE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory - - - - - - -11 
 
 The early Quaker movement - - - - 13 
 
 Its two great characteristics, — intense sincerity 
 and the experience of the liviug presence 
 
 of Christ 14 
 
 "Seekers" were especially receptive to the mes- 14 
 
 sage of George Fox _ _ _ _ - 
 Edward Biurough's description of experience 16 
 The heightened personality that came to the 
 
 "Children of the Light" - - - - 20 
 Quakerism a religion of the prophetic and 
 apostolic type, in contrast with the priestly 
 and institutional type - - - - - 21 
 The Church should be a living fellowship of 
 disciples at work for the Kingdom of God, 
 plus Jesus Christ Himself, in whose Spirit 
 they become together "one flock, one 
 Shepherd" 23 
 
 5 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The vital nature of such a fellowship - - 24 
 Our position not negative but positive - - 25 
 Quakerism a "religion of life" - - . - 25 
 The supreme question for the Church, How can 
 
 we foster life? -------26 
 
 Cheap substitutes for life ----- 29 
 
 A religion of life must devote itself to vital pro- 
 cesses and vital relations; chiefly, 
 Loyal discipleship ----- 30 
 
 Inspired leadership ----- 31 
 
 Warm fellowship ----- 33 
 
 Loving service ------ 35 
 
 Steady spiritual growth - - - - 36 
 
 Methods and machinery, organization and 
 Church discipline have only a subordinate 
 value to these prime factors of health - 37 
 The life must be allowed free expression; the 
 
 form must be kept plastic - - - - 38 
 
 The physiologist tells us that living matter is 
 always soft and jelly-like, permitting of the 
 free play of molecular interchanges - - 38 
 Fit the clothes to the man, not the man to the 
 
 clothes --- 40 
 
 Expansion that comes where the Spirit of God 
 has been allowed freely to work upon groups 
 of disciples without being limited by organ- 
 ization and tradition, e. g. Foreign Mis- 
 sionary Work, Adult School movement, 
 Quakerism in Western States - - - 40 
 
 6 
 
Analytical Table of Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Church-arrangements, important in themselves, 
 should be regarded as machinery through 
 which the life can work, — the life of the 
 individual which we call personal respon- 
 sibility, of the group, which we call fellow- 
 ship, and above all the Divine vitality, 
 which we call spiritual power and spiritual 
 guidance ------ --41 
 
 Above conclusion illustrated from the way in 
 which these vital forces come into play in 
 the various forms of Friends' meetings - 42 
 The evangelistic service and its needs - 43 
 
 The meeting for worship, its great value and its 
 
 needs 44 
 
 The teaching meeting and its needs - 46 
 
 Quakerism, at its best, always the productof vital 
 
 forces and the producer of vital relations 47 
 Its dependence upon the earnest seeking spirit - 48 
 Craving to-day for reality in religion and life - 49 
 Atmosphere of large - hearted charity and 
 
 brotherly confidence needed - - - - 50 
 Quakerism,essentially,a religion of sincerity, an- 
 swered by the incoming of the living Christ 51 
 Hopes confronting us to-day, — the craving after 
 truth, the meanuig and worth of personality, 
 woman's place in the world, the reign of 
 law in international affairs, the regenera- 
 tion of social conditions, the hope of Christ 
 for the whole world 52 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Quaker Church called to be in the van- 
 guard of progress with respect to all these - 53 
 
 Duty of personal witness for truth, based on a 
 
 living experience of it - - - - - 53 
 
 Conclusion ----.-__ 54 
 
 PART II 
 
 THE CONTRIBUTION OF FRIENDS TO THE 
 
 LIFE AND WORK OF THE CHURCH 
 
 BY HENRY T. HODGKIN, M.A., M.B. 
 
 Personal experience of co-operation with other 
 denominations in west China and elsewhere 
 
 An ideal of Chrisitan unity ----- 57 
 
 The Society of Friends in relation thereto - 58 
 
 That which the Society holds in common with 
 
 others ----_.. .62 
 
 The attitude in which the contribution can be 
 
 made- --------63 
 
 Summary of some contributions Friends have 
 already made. 
 
 Need of first-hand experience — Religious 
 toleration — Brotherhood of all races — High 
 business standard — Practical philanthropy 66 
 
 Contribution of Friends to modern life. 
 
 Direct personal intercourse with God — 
 Modern drift to materialism — The greater 
 danger in the child races — Proposed 
 remedies — The positive message of Friends 69 
 
 8 
 
Analytical Table of Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The quiet heart. 
 
 The rush of modern life — The sense of need 
 felt at home and abroad — ^Worship as a 
 united inspired act — A high ideal to be 
 reached --- 76 
 
 The leadership of the Spirit. 
 
 From autocracy to democracy — The nation- 
 alist spirit in the East — ^The Quaker meet- 
 ing for discipline — A theocratic ideal - 83 
 
 Idealism. 
 
 The danger of opportunism — Solution of the 
 race problem — ^Place of the idealist - - 89 
 
 Woman's contribution. 
 
 The Woman's Movement to-day — The 
 emancipation of women in the East — The 
 failure of the Church to respond — The ex- 
 perience of Friends . . _ . . 95 
 
 A non-professional ministry. 
 
 The labor movement an aspiration — Diffi- 
 culty of the organized Churches — Danger 
 abroad — Freedom of the ministry - - 99 
 
 The spirit of tolerance. 
 
 Modern scholarship and the Bible — Sug-| 
 gested solutions of the difficulty — A grave 
 peril — Where Friends can help - - 104 
 
 How the message is to be delivered. 
 
 A fresh conviction — A fuller consecration — 
 Large sympathy with others — A corporate 
 sense of mission — Apostles - - - - 109 
 
 9 
 
PART I 
 
 THE ESSENTIALS OF QUAKERISM 
 by william c. braithwaite 
 
 Introductory Words 
 
 It is with great diffidence that we from 
 England venture to speak to the American 
 Yearly Meetings. Our circumstances and 
 the problems we have to face are often so 
 different that it would be presumptuous 
 in us to feel that we had advice on matters 
 of detail that would deserve very great 
 attention from you. But when it comes 
 to our common history and to the common 
 inheritance we have in the principles and 
 faith of the Society of Friends, we may 
 speak freely. 
 
 We represent the main body of those 
 who call themselves ' ' Friends . ' ' The Yearly 
 Meetings from which we come connect 
 by continuous history with the first Quaker 
 Churches of two hundred and fifty years 
 
 11 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 ago. Of course when we compare ourselves 
 as we are now, with the first Friends, we find 
 great differences, as great undoubtedly 
 as exist between the New Englander of 
 to-day and the Pilgrim Fathers. We 
 should find much to astonish if we could 
 peep in at one of those first London meetings 
 held in the summer of the year 1655 at the 
 Bull and Mouth, the great "tavern-chapel" 
 in Aldersgate, in which you could then 
 crowd a thousand people standing. I 
 fancy these meetings may have been 
 rather like some of your pioneer meetings 
 in the West. But the pioneers of the 
 London work, Howgill and Burrough, would 
 find modern Quakerism, whether in England 
 or in the Middle West, a strange thing. 
 It takes a wise man to recognize his 
 own great-great-great-great grandchildren. 
 They have an inheritance that connects 
 them up with their ancestor, but their 
 environment is so different that on the 
 surface they seem to have been changed 
 into another type of man. At bottom, 
 however, we shall find that the inherited 
 tjrpe will continue. 
 
 12 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 "For never Pilgrims' offshoot scapes control 
 Of those old instincts that have shaped his soul." 
 (Lowell, "Fitz Adam's Story.") 
 
 In other words, the inner life of a religious 
 movement remains, although the expres- 
 sion of that life will greatly vary under 
 changing conditions of time and place. 
 
 I. 
 
 In order to get at the essentials of Quaker- 
 ism, we do well to go back to the beginnings, 
 to those first years of nascent energy which 
 carried the Quaker message through the 
 English-speaking world. Whenever a new 
 truth starts to life, it is intensely dynamic 
 and vital; it masters every opposing 
 circumstance; it flings itseK victoriously 
 against a stubborn world. It is a thing 
 of hfe and movement, and I believe it will 
 be found that a Uve truth in motion is the | 
 Imightiest of aU forces. But, a generation' 
 later, unless the vital forces have been 
 cherished, the emphasis comes to be laid 
 on establishment rather than movement, 
 and when a thing gets established it usually 
 ceases to move; the emphasis comes to 
 
 13 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 be laid on dogma instead of truth, on 
 organization instead of life, and the day of 
 glory and power passes away. That was 
 the case with Quakerism. 
 
 Two things, I believe, leave a vivid 
 impression upon any student of the early 
 Quaker movement. They can be stated 
 quite simply, but they make up together 
 the fundamentals of Quakerism to which 
 everything else belongs as a natural con- 
 sequence. 
 
 In the first place we find ourselves 
 among men and women of an intense sin- 
 cerity, who are seeking truth with all the 
 energy of their faith, all the energy of their 
 nature, and, in the second place, we become 
 aware that this earnest search after the 
 Kingdom of God and its righteousness was 
 rewarded with a great finding, a rich 
 personal experience in their lives, of the 
 living presence of Jesus Christ, their Savior. 
 
 We know now that communities who 
 called themselves "Seekers" were specially 
 receptive of the Quaker message, and 
 became the main strength of the new move- 
 ment. In that Puritan age, filled with 
 
 U 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 religious zeal, there were many honest- 
 hearted men craving after something more 
 real than the mere outward profession of 
 religion. They were not satisfied with the 
 triumphant religion of the time, which 
 put strong emphasis, and rightly put strong 
 emphasis, on belief in the great historical 
 facts of Christianity, but had little or no 
 conception of Christ's living presence in 
 the world to-day. And when Fox told 
 these honest-hearted Seekers that he knew 
 in his own experience that Jesus Christ 
 was come to teach His people HimseK, 
 their souls leapt up to welcome the Divine 
 Guest. Fox himself was a man of intense 
 sincerity, who found actually in his own 
 spirit the place where the seed of Divine 
 life was springing up, the place where the 
 voice of a Divine teacher was being uttered, 
 the place that was being inhabited by a 
 Divine and glorious presence. He could 
 teU the great company of Seekers who met 
 at Firbank Fell in Westmorland on that 
 memorable afternoon in June, 1652, not 
 only of an historical Christ, but of a Uving 
 Savior, their Teacher to instruct them, 
 
 15 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 their Governor to direct them, their Shep- 
 herd to feed them, their Bishop to oversee 
 them, their Prophet to open Divine mys- 
 teries to them. I am giving you the points 
 of his three-hour sermon on that occasion. 
 Their bodies, he said, were intended to 
 be temples for Jesus Christ to dwell in. 
 They were to be brought off from the 
 temples, tithes, priests and rudiments of 
 the world. They were to come to the 
 Spirit of God in themselves and to Christ 
 the Substance. 
 
 The new message opened out a new way 
 of life to men who were sincere enough 
 to go through with it and to live it out. 
 It carried with it a radical transformation 
 or rather transfiguration of life from the 
 earthly into the Heavenly. I will give a 
 passage in the quaint English of the time in 
 which Edward Burrough, himself one of 
 these Westmorland Seekers, describes the 
 experience : 
 
 "In aU things we found the Light which 
 we were enlightened withal, and all man- 
 kind (which is Christ), to be alone and only 
 su^flScient to bring to Life and eternal 
 
 16 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 salvation. And so we ceased from the 
 teachings of all men, and their words, 
 and their worships and their temples, and 
 all their baptisms and churches, and we 
 met together often, and waited upon the 
 Lord in pure silence, from our own words 
 and aU men's words, and hearkened to the 
 voice of the Lord, and felt His word in our 
 hearts to burn up and beat down all that 
 was contrary to God, and we obeyed the 
 Light of Christ in us, and took up the cross 
 to all earthly glories, crowns and ways, 
 and denied ourselves, our relations and all 
 that stood in the way betwixt us and the 
 Lord, and, while waiting upon the Lord 
 in silence, as often we did for many hours 
 together, we received often the poiu-ing 
 down of the Spirit upon us, and om- hearts 
 were made glad and our tongues loosed 
 and our mouths opened, and we spake with 
 new tongues, as the Lord gave us utterance, 
 and as His Spirit led us, which was poured 
 down upon us, on sons and daughters, 
 and the glory of the Father was revealed. 
 And then began we to sing praises to the 
 Lord God Almighty and to the Lamb 
 
 17 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 forever, who had redeemed us to God, 
 and brought us out of the captivity and 
 bondage of the world, and put an end to sin 
 and death, — and all this was by and through 
 and in the Light of Christ within us."* 
 
 Now, it is not my purpose to examine 
 this experience from the side either of 
 psychology or dogmatic theology. There 
 are psychologists and theologians, too, 
 with whom I could not venture to com- 
 pare myseK, but it is enough to take 
 the great experience simply as historical 
 fact. There can be no question that two 
 hundred and fifty years ago actual living 
 intercourse with the Divine, such as Bur- 
 rough describes, gathered the first Friends 
 into their wonderful fellowship. It lifted 
 them into an order of life which set them 
 in a place of vision and power and joy. 
 They saw the things of time in the light 
 of eternity. They knew what it was to 
 overcome the world, so that nothing could 
 daunt their faith. In the words of one of 
 the finest of the first Friends, William Dews- 
 bury, the very prisons became palaces 
 
 *Biirrough, Preface to "Great Mystery." 
 18 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 to them and the bolts and locks jewels. 
 The Kingdom of Heaven was theirs, not 
 indeed bringing the prizes of worldly ambi- 
 tion, but filling life with something richer, 
 righteousness and peace and joy in the 
 Holy Ghost. And all this was the reward 
 and the result of a single-hearted sincerity,— 
 \ full righteousness of heart, full humihty 
 \^of soul, full searching after truth, full 
 /opening of the heart to the incoming of 
 the Divine life. It had been won, as men 
 count, at a great price. It had meant a 
 breach with the current fashions of hf e and 
 forms of religion; it had meant a daring fol- 
 lowing of fresh truth through all its untried 
 consequences; it had meant suffering and 
 loss; it had meant the daily crossing of the 
 carnal mind. It had meant all these things, 
 yes, but it had meant also the incoming 
 of the Life of Christ, bringing men into a 
 new fellowship with one another and with 
 God. 
 
 We have to admit that in the first tide 
 of this wonderful experience there were 
 some serious extravagances of thought and 
 conduct. It would be strange, I suppose, 
 
 19 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 if newly opened eyes did not sometimes 
 see men as trees walking. You get these 
 extravagances when a fresh faculty of the 
 soul is awaking to its powers. But the 
 main phenomenon of Quakerism is the 
 heightened personality which undoubtedly 
 came to the Children of the Light. They 
 were men and women to "shake their coun- 
 try in their profession for ten miles round," 
 as some of our Friends have done in the 
 Western states. Their very look carried 
 with it the sentence of honor or shame. 
 Their words had a challenging power, 
 challenging men's consciences, forcing them 
 to face the issues of good and evil, shatter- 
 ing self-complacency and self-righteousness. 
 The Quaker was an impregnable man, 
 his principles were held with an extra- 
 ordinary tenacity. He stood not on a 
 sandy foundation of notions, but on a 
 rock of experience, and thus founded the 
 man was sure and steadfast. The message 
 of a present living Christ within the heart 
 and a present Kingdom of God awaiting 
 those who would receive it burned in the 
 heart of these first Friends. It burned 
 
 20 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 in their hearts as a gospel for all men. 
 It is a great mistake to suppose that the 
 Quaker Church was founded as a sect. 
 It had nothing sectarian about it. It had 
 a great message of vital spiritual experience 
 to give to the whole world. These first 
 Friends were evangehsts of vital Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 They began as our evangelists to-day 
 begin, by warning men to repent. George 
 Fox went up Wensleydale calling on men 
 to repent, for the day of the Lord was at 
 hand, and proclaiming the Kingdom of 
 Christ at the door of men's hearts, for them 
 to take or reject. That is the spirit of 
 this early Quakerism, and it surely takes 
 us back to the spirit of the prophets and of 
 primitive Christianity. 
 
 II. 
 
 The centering of life on the realities of 
 inward intercourse with God is the great 
 mark of the prophetic and apostolic type 
 of religion and is in sharp contrast with 
 religion of the priestly or institutional 
 type. The prophet was a man who knew 
 
 21, 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 what it was to have converse with Jehovah 
 and sure knowledge of His will. He became 
 a Seer, a man of insight and foresight, 
 aware of the true values of things, the true 
 values as weighed in the balance of the 
 sanctuary. He became thereby a great 
 social and moral reformer. His ideal was 
 of a time when all would be prophets — 
 when "your sons and your daughters shall 
 prophesy, your old men shaU dream dreams, 
 your young men shall see visions." And 
 we may remember that this ideal is recog- 
 nized on the day of Pentecost as the natural 
 first-fruits of the Spirit. If it had been 
 realized the Church would have been a 
 school of prophets from generation to gen- 
 eration. Unfortunately the Church has 
 more often stifled the seer and glorified the 
 priest. 
 
 As I understand it, it is the specific 
 mission of Quakerism to propagate a Chris- 
 tianity of this prophetic, apostolic type, a 
 Christianity in which the Church is a living 
 fellowship of disciples at work for the social 
 and moral ends of the Kingdom of God. 
 But the Church is not simply, in the 
 
 22 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 Quaker conception, a fellowship of disciples 
 at work for the Kingdom of God; it is 
 such a fellowship plus Jesus Christ Him- 
 seU, in whose Spirit, the Spirit which unites 
 them one to another and to Him, they 
 become together "one flock, one Shepherd." 
 Fellowships, made up of groups of men 
 and women who are with Christ, redeemed 
 by Him, learning from Him, following Him, 
 helping in His work, looking out on life 
 with something of His devotion to the will 
 of God and His passion to seek and save 
 the lost — such are the true Quaker Churches. 
 It is worth while to analyze the conception 
 a little. The Church, we say, is a living 
 fellowship — ^not in the first place an organi- 
 zation, but iu the first place an organism — 
 not an institution, but a body, built up of 
 many cells, many individuals, just as the 
 body has ceEs that grow and change and 
 perform their several functions under the 
 direction of an all-pervading, all-embracing 
 life. That is what a living fellowship means . 
 This life received through direct contact 
 with the Divine life is the one essential 
 of the Christian Church. It is the business 
 
 23 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 of the Church to see that it is fostered in 
 every possible way, so that the body may 
 freely grow under its influence and freely 
 express the life in all forms of worthy hving. 
 
 Historically, Quakerism is the product 
 of this vital experience and while we 
 gladly recognize that the experience is 
 shared by us with many other branches 
 of the Christian Church, it remains true 
 that no other rehgious community so delib- 
 erately and emphatically bases its individ- 
 ual and corporate hfe upon this supreme 
 fact of the soul's immediate contact with 
 God. 
 
 Our special position among the churches 
 is sometimes stated — not by the Five Years' 
 Meeting — in a series of desolating negatives. 
 We do not practice water baptism, nor 
 partake of the outward elements of the 
 Lord's Supper, we are against war and 
 oaths and priestcraft, our meetings are held 
 on a basis of silence, and so on — aU nega- 
 tives. But we were gathered as a people 
 out of the world through the force of 
 dynamic positives. We withstand priest- 
 craft because every disciple is ordained for 
 
 24 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 service. As George Fox said, every man 
 hath an office and is serviceable. We 
 witness against oaths, because we uphold 
 a single standard of truth speaking, and 
 against distinctions of dress and address, 
 because all men are equal in the sight of 
 God; we oppose war because the armor of 
 the children of light is the armor of 
 righteousness, and disuse the outward form 
 of baptism because the all-important thing 
 is not the form but the inward repentance 
 and cleansing by the blood of Christ. 
 We cannot narrow down the experience of 
 communion with our Lord to special cere- 
 monials and places and ministrants, when 
 we hold that Jesus offers HimseK as the 
 Bread of Life to His people day by day— 
 in the home, in the factory, at business, 
 in aU our common work and in all our 
 loftiest worship— the whole of life may be 
 a sacrament of communion with Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 It is as a "reUgion of hfe" that Quakerism 
 will be presented in the future and is being 
 presented now. 
 
 Its distinguishing note will be its resolve 
 
 25 
 
Message an d Mission of Quakerism 
 
 to bring all this hiunan life of ours under 
 the transforming power of spiritual life. 
 It will stand out against all divisions and 
 compartments that separate the sacred 
 from the secular, the sanctuary from the 
 outward world of nature, the sacrament 
 from the day's common work, the clergy 
 from the laity. 
 
 It wiU tell of a Christian experience that 
 makes all life sacred and all days holy, 
 all nature a sanctuary, aU work a sacrament, 
 and gives to every man and woman in the 
 body fit place and service. Its concern 
 will be to multiply men and women who wiU 
 have a message of power because they are 
 themselves living in the power of God, 
 who wiU spread the light because they are 
 themselves the children of light. It wiU 
 claim the whole of a man's life, and the 
 whole of life, individual, social, national, 
 international, for the dominion of the will 
 of God. 
 
 III. 
 
 So then the question comes: How can 
 we foster this life? How can the Church 
 
 26 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 continue, through a succession of genera- 
 tions and amid manifold changes of cir- 
 cimistance and thought, not merely its 
 name and organization, its tradition of 
 the fathers and its orthodoxy of language, 
 but a living body of Christ, which shall 
 embody Him, as He would make Himself 
 known to each age? 
 
 That is the supreme question. Unless 
 the Church does that, it misrepresents its 
 Lord and hinders the coming of His King- 
 dom. 
 
 Everything must be thought of in terms 
 of vital relation if we are to see our way 
 to an answer. We are dealing with life, 
 and it is life, a unity of life, that connects 
 the individual Christian with his Savior 
 and with his fellow-Christians. 
 
 I know vital relations are costly things; 
 it is comparatively easy to preach and 
 profess; it is not easy to give ourselves. 
 But vital relations are abundantly fruitful, 
 and that supreme giving of hfe which we 
 associate with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ 
 is, we know, the most fruitful vital relation 
 that has ever been exhibited in history. 
 
 27 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 "He, the Son of man, gave his life a ransom 
 for many"— for the whole world. 
 
 Dr. Hort has finely said : 
 
 "In the times when Christianity owed 
 nothing to custom and tradition, and when 
 all the ways of ordinary society tended 
 to draw men away from it, what drew them 
 to it and held them to it, despite aU perse- 
 cution, was the power of its life. . . . 
 Life calling to life was the one victorious 
 power which mastered men and women of 
 aU conditions and aU grades of culture."* 
 
 We cannot commend the Kingdom of 
 God to the world through institutions that 
 are starched and stifif , but only by the living, 
 warm, expansive touch of human hearts 
 reaching out in fellowship to others. 
 
 Men substitute tradition for the living 
 experience of the love of God. They talk 
 and think as though walking with God was 
 attained by walking in the footsteps of 
 men who walked with God. There has 
 been a great deal of that in the Quaker 
 Church. 
 
 They substitute authority for leadership, 
 
 *" The Way, The Truth, The Life," p. 183. 
 28 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 the authority of the men of the past for the 
 inspiration of men who have vision and 
 first-hand experience of truth to-day. They 
 substitute conventional methods — ^we have 
 had a great deal of that, too — for the 
 natural arrangements which a living fellow- 
 ship of disciples would make and modify 
 from time to time and place to place. 
 They substitute a cold organization for a 
 warm fellowship, an outward profession 
 for an inward experience, priestly agency 
 for personal responsibility, dogmatic teach- 
 ing for education, almsgiving for personal 
 social service, sectarian ends for the great 
 purposes of the Kingdom of God. 
 
 There is no end to the cheap substitutes 
 offered for the use of the Church. Ahnost 
 aU of them are methods for running the 
 Christian Society with the minimum of 
 spiritual energy, seeing how little spiritual 
 life you can manage with, whereas our aim 
 ought to be to generate and use the maxi- 
 mum in the illimitable service of the King- 
 dom of God. 
 
 A religion of life must devote itself to 
 vital processes and vital relations. These 
 
 29 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 are the things that concern our truest 
 weKare. Take the chief: — ^loyal disciple- 
 ship, inspired leadership, warm fellowship, 
 loving service, steady spiritual growth; 
 every one of them vital processes. Look 
 at them in order just suflBciently to get them 
 well in mind. 
 
 Jesus Christ, so far as we know, wrote 
 nothing, He organized no religious society. 
 He formulated no creed, but what He did 
 was to gather around HimseK a band of 
 disciples, men and women, who received 
 His spirit, and in turn would bring others 
 into touch with the life which had redeemed 
 them. His life, springing up in the lives 
 of men, was to be fundamentally that 
 which should regenerate the world. 
 
 The act of discipleship was following 
 Jesus. It began with personal adherence 
 to the Lord, and it continued through 
 personal communion with Him. In art 
 and in learning we know how stimulating 
 the daily contact of teacher and disciple 
 proves to be — the disciple's spirit kindled 
 by the enkindled spirit of his teacher, the 
 coming together of teacher and scholars 
 
 80 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 into a common life and a common purpose. 
 That is why the colleges of American 
 Quakerism have been such great forces. 
 Still greater, vastly greater, is the disciple- 
 ship which is ours in the School of Christ. 
 It calls for the fullest dedication, the closest 
 following, the daily taking of the cross, 
 but it gives us Him who is the Way, the 
 Truth and the Life. 
 
 Discipleship then is the first vital relation 
 that must be always energi;zing the Church, 
 but next in order comes inspired leadership. 
 
 The great initial success of Quakerism 
 was due, beyond aU else, so far as human 
 means went, to the traveling "Publishers 
 of Truth," as they called themselves, who 
 carried their burning message far and wide; 
 they were like rich hfe-blood circulating 
 freely through the body. They were for 
 the most part men and women of competent 
 Bible knowledge and reUgious training, 
 men with intense sincerity, with a great 
 experience, who were talking about Christ 
 because they knew Hun. They went out 
 on a devoted service, which no privations 
 or persecutions could daunt, and many of 
 
 81 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 them were young men in the prime of their 
 ardor and strength, who would follow the 
 movings of life rather than the coimsels 
 of prudence — and we want those in the 
 Church. The Church must be prepared 
 to take a few risks with its young men. 
 After all, the hearts of the young are burning 
 for a crusade. 
 
 In the days of persecution which came 
 upon the Quaker Church there was a great 
 mortaUty among these leaders and unfor- 
 tunately the supply of new leaders was 
 small, indeed, ever since that glorious morn- 
 ing of Quakerism, the equipment of the 
 Quaker Church with inspired leaders has 
 been a pressing problem. It is our business 
 to raise up not priests but prophets, Chris- 
 tian men and women of trained intelligence 
 and wide outlook, who know God and have 
 a sure insight into the great social and 
 spiritual needs of humanity, whose lives 
 have been redeemed, whose hearts have 
 been touched with the live coal from off 
 the altar. There is no place in vital religion 
 for the vested interests of a clerical caste, 
 nor the dead hand of tradition, nor the 
 
 32 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 compulsion of conscience by the authority 
 of the expert; but there is every need for a 
 leadership, which continues the past in a 
 living experience and educates and inspires 
 and illuminates. A democracy requires 
 .leadership, not the leadership of authority, 
 but what we may call, to use the constitu- 
 tion of the Five Years Meeting, an advisory 
 leadership, moving along channels of inspira- 
 tion and personal influence. "For lack of 
 vision the people perish." 
 
 The third great vital relation that the 
 Church has to be fostering is warm fellow- 
 ship. A few degrees of temperature may 
 alter a climate and introduce wonderful 
 possibilities of new life. Change the climate 
 and you change the kinds of growth which 
 may come into the world. It is very much 
 the same with the Church. I remember 
 a story of a little girl who was taken into a 
 cold church one winter's day. She got in 
 at one end and could scarcely hear what 
 the preacher was talking about. After 
 church she went home and her mother 
 asked her: "Nellie, what was the text 
 to-day?" She answered, "I couldn't hear 
 
 83 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 it very well, but I think it was ' Many are 
 cold but few frozen.' " 
 
 I think congregations have sometimes 
 preached that sermon. It is oftener 
 preached by the congregation than by the 
 minister. 
 
 Quakerism at times has suffered from a 
 frigidity of climate which has repressed 
 and repeUed. In the first centuries Chris- 
 tianity became a great power, because it 
 was a great brotherhood. Surely we 
 need to warm up our church organization 
 so that it becomes quickened into a living 
 fellowship. We want a Christianity with 
 the brotherliness left in and the starch 
 taken out. I remember seeing an advertise- 
 ment, "Catlow's preserves, boiled in silver 
 pans." What it meant was this: you got 
 the sugar, you got the fruit, and you got 
 nothing else. That is what we want in our 
 Christianity. We want the sweetness and 
 we want the fruitfulness. We don't want 
 much else. We don't want frigidity, we 
 don't want starch. 
 
 Group life with a strong fellowship about 
 it has always been a Quaker characteristic. 
 
 34 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 In the early days it was groups of Seekers 
 who embraced the message of Fox, and in 
 England we still find Friends settled in 
 groups over the country. I notice, in the 
 expansion of Quakerism in the far West, 
 that it is colonies of Friends you get. You 
 cannot have a diffused Quakerism diffused 
 over the whole State of Nebraska or Cali- 
 fornia, but you can have a few groups of 
 Friends at particular points. But group 
 life means a great deal more than the 
 collection of persons within the four walls 
 of a particular building. It means a life 
 in community and comradeship, because 
 the members are joined together actually 
 and vitally in a common Lord and a com- 
 mon discipleship. It means, as with the 
 limbs of the body, that the gifts and 
 activities of each are freely used for the 
 service of the whole. It means that each 
 shares in and contributes to the larger 
 life of the whole. 
 
 Then there is the need for loving service. 
 A Church is not an end in itself, not a club 
 where we sit at ease in Zion ; it is a means 
 to an end. It ought to be, in the phrase 
 
 35 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 of our early Friends, a "camp of the Lord." 
 It needs to have the purposes of the King- 
 dom of God ringing in its ears all the time. 
 It needs to be vowed to the great redemp- 
 tive work of seeking and saving the lost. 
 It will be rightly judged by its output 
 of service for the Kingdom of God. I 
 fancy that the weakness of modern Chris- 
 tianity is very similar to the besetting 
 weakness of civilization. We grasp our 
 privileges and shirk our responsibilities. 
 The healthy Church fixes each member with 
 personal responsibility for using the life 
 which he has received. It finds work for 
 aU to do. It knows that activity is the 
 natural expression of life, and that the 
 torpor of any part spells atrophy and death. 
 
 Last of my list is what I have called 
 steady, spiritual growth. The vital rela- 
 tions which are the wealth of the Chiwch 
 not only bring about a imity of life with 
 God and with one another, but produce 
 that progressive development of personal- 
 ity that we call growth. 
 
 These are the questions we need to be 
 asking ourselves all the time: Are our 
 
 36 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 church members bigger men and women 
 inwardly than a year ago? 
 
 Are they stronger in faith, more radiant 
 in hope, warmer in love? 
 
 Have their spiritual senses developed? 
 Do they see more of truth, hear more 
 readily the Divine voice, respond more 
 quickly to the guidance of the Spirit? 
 
 Are their consciences alert, their loins 
 girt, their hands eager for sacrifice and 
 service? 
 
 Here surely is what we may call the inten- 
 sive work of the Chm-ch, the making of men 
 and women not after the pattern of the 
 world, but after the pattern of Jesus Christ, 
 who shall go forth in His power and spirit 
 to serve the Kingdom of God. 
 
 Now, we might well enlarge on these five 
 important vital processes — discipleship, 
 leadership, fellowship, service and growth. 
 But my purpose will have been served if I 
 have said enough to bring home to you the 
 fact that these are the things that matter, 
 the things that are of vital importance in 
 the Church. Methods and machinery, 
 organization and Church discipline have a 
 
 37 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 value of their own, but only a subordinate 
 value to these prime factors of health. 
 If these lesser things are accepted as a 
 substitute for the vital factors, the Church 
 becomes weak. If they are allowed to 
 limit the development of the life, the 
 Church may become dwarfed and deadened. 
 Their true function, the true function of 
 organization and discipline and these other 
 matters, is surely large enough — ^namely, 
 to provide means with which and through 
 which the life can readily work. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In vital Quakerism then, the form has 
 continually to be subordinated to the Ufe. 
 The life must be allowed free expression 
 from time to time and place to place accord- 
 ing to the varying needs and circumstances. 
 In a word, the form must be kept plastic. 
 This should be as much a fundamental 
 of religious biology as it is of physiology. 
 
 The physiologist tells us that living matter 
 is always soft and jelly-like. It is matter 
 in a jeUy-like state, permitting of the 
 free play of molecular interchanges, so that 
 
 88 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 it is called a "djoiamical state of matter." 
 That is the general statement about living 
 matter Which the physiologist has to make 
 to us to-day. It is essential that it should 
 be plastic, able to grow, able to change its 
 shape from time to time. It is always 
 changing its form, as may be seen in the 
 colorless cells of the blood. It has been 
 said, and said truly, that no one of us is 
 the same person we were seven years ago, 
 every little bit of us has been changed in 
 the interval. Living matter does not grow 
 Uke the crystal, by the addition of new 
 matter on its surfaces. It grows by ab- 
 sorbing matter into its substance and 
 transforming that into matter like itself. 
 
 It should surely be the same in the life 
 of institutions. The form should be flexible 
 so that the life may be continually growing 
 and changing its form according to the 
 great directing control which the life exerts 
 upon the body, and you want ease and 
 flexibility in organizations just as you do 
 in clothes. If you do not have this, you 
 will have a good deal of chafing and cramp- 
 ing. Sometimes, perhaps, a growing boy 
 
 39 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 will burst his waistcoat. It is a great 
 mistake to try to fit the man to the clothes 
 when we ought to be fitting the fclothes to 
 the man, but it is a mistake that the Quaker 
 Church has frequently made. 
 
 In Church life, our own included, the 
 letter that Idlleth has again and again 
 encroached upon the quickening spirit. 
 Outward government and external rules 
 have hmited spiritual guidance. The desire 
 to preserve the deposit of faith has 
 crystalized vital experience into for- 
 mularies and creeds. Emphasis has been 
 laid upon life according to some stereo- 
 typed standard with a particular cut of 
 collar and a particular mode of language 
 and the life of the spirit has been quenched. 
 But where the Spirit of God has been allowed 
 freely to work upon the groups of disciples 
 there has been a wonderful expansion of 
 Christianity of a vital kind. This has been 
 largely the case in the great foreign mis- 
 sionary work of the Churches, and in our 
 Adult School movement in England, and 
 in the pioneer work of Quakerism in the 
 Western states. 
 
 40 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 If spiritual life is allowed to be the con- 
 trolling, directing, molding force in Quaker- 
 ism I have no fear for our future. We shall 
 put in the forefront of our Church work 
 the things that belong to life, the gathering 
 of disciples, the raising of leaders and 
 prophets, the maintenance of warm fellow- 
 ship, the encouragement of service, the 
 fostering of growth. This means that 
 our Church arrangements will be so made 
 and modified as to promote and secm-e the 
 expression through them of the living 
 forces which we have at our command. 
 Those living forces are the spiritual force 
 of the individual, which we call individual 
 responsibility, the living force of the group, 
 which we call fellowship, and above aU, 
 the Divine vitahty, the incoming of the 
 life of Jesus Christ, which we caU spiritual 
 power and spiritual guidance. Chiu-ch 
 arrangements, important in themselves, 
 must be regarded as simply machinery 
 through which forces can work, and the 
 more efficiently the machinery allows the 
 forces to work, the richer will be the service 
 of the Church. 
 
 41 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 Let us consider the way in which these 
 great forces get to work. I will take the 
 meetings of the Church as my illustration. 
 I am not one who says that the only kind 
 of Friends' meeting is a meeting for worship. 
 I beUeve that there are three or four types 
 of Friends' meetings, in aU of which we 
 may have personal responsibiUty and group 
 fellowship and the spiritual power and 
 guidance of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Take first— it comes first — the evangel- 
 istic service, the meeting which seeks to do 
 the primary work of the Church, by bring- 
 ing the gospel of Jesus Christ to man, 
 the living gospel of a living Savior. For 
 such a meeting you want a man who 
 feels his personal responsibility, who feels 
 that he is speaking as the ambassador of 
 Jesus Christ, called, chosen, faithful, with 
 a freshly given message of truth on his 
 hps, but you want also behind him to back 
 him the fellowship and sympathy of a 
 group of earnest souls, who are helping the 
 meeting by their prayer and sympathy, 
 and who perhaps themselves wiU have some 
 share in the delivery of the message or in 
 
 42 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 the other outward service of the meeting. 
 Moreover, the ingathering of disciples is 
 a matter not only for evangelistic services, 
 but for individual personal influence. 
 Andrew findeth his own brother Simon: 
 Philip findeth Nathanael. The men and 
 women reached wiU need from the first to 
 be surrounded with a new set of compan- 
 ions and to be brought into a new fellowship. 
 They will need, not simply one service 
 on a Sunday stimulating them to foUow 
 Jesus Christ, but the helpful comradeship 
 of a group bringing them into a knowl- 
 edge of what it means to live according to 
 the wiU of God. In the redemptive work 
 which our Adult Schools in England have 
 done in hundreds of cases amongst men and 
 women who had lost their own respect and 
 were down in the gutter, the most fruit- 
 ful work has been done by bringing men and 
 women a new set of companions, in whose 
 fellowship they may learn what the love of 
 Jesus Christ means. 
 
 Take next the Friends' meeting with 
 worship as its primary object. There 
 you see clearly the three-fold play of these 
 
 43 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 same forces of personal responsibility, group- 
 fellowship and spiritual guidance. Worship 
 in fellowship is an intensely active thing. 
 Its basis is not an inert stiDness, but a 
 waiting upon God in the unity of the spirit. 
 The meetings of the first Friends were 
 radiant with the joy of Christ's indweUiag 
 life. There were times of liviag fellow- 
 ship and commimion, warm with the 
 central fires of Divine love, so delightful 
 that sometimes they could hardly break 
 them up and would stay far into the night. 
 
 The meeting for worship, more than any 
 other agency, has given the world the 
 Quaker type of character — the man or 
 woman who meets life's problems simply 
 and wisely, because he resolves them, 
 not by passion or prejudice, nor mainly 
 by the motions of human wisdom or policy, 
 but by habitually consulting the Light of 
 God which shines in the waiting soul. 
 
 The revival in its power of the Quaker 
 meeting is an urgent need in the crowded 
 hurry of this twentieth century, when men 
 live so much upon the surface and so little 
 in the deep places of their lives. 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 The world is too much with us, late and soon, 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. 
 
 In England, wherever you get earnest- 
 hearted groups of persons together at a 
 special gathermg, as an Adult School week 
 end, or a lecture school, or a conference, 
 you find, whether they are Friends or not, 
 that a Friends' meeting of a free, open kind, 
 with prayer and praise and speech and 
 silent worship all mingled under the guid- 
 ance of the Spirit, comes as the great crown 
 of all our fellowship and our intercourse, the 
 benediction of aU that has taken place, 
 the perfectly natural means through which 
 the common fellowship and purpose are 
 lifted into communion with the life of God. 
 We hardly sufficiently understand the great 
 value in deepening character and consoU- 
 dating fellowship of meetings of this kind, 
 where there is a common purpose. 
 
 The poverty of many Friends' meetings 
 for worship has lain, I think, in the poverty 
 of common purpose in the congregation. 
 Where there is a common purpose, a sincere 
 waiting upon the Lord in fellowship, their 
 value is very great. 
 
 <L5 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 It is the place for withdrawing awhile 
 from the things of outward sense and 
 exercising the faculties of spiritual sense; 
 the place where to the awakened soul the 
 vision of truth may be seen, the Word of 
 the Lord may be heard, the guidings of 
 His hand may be felt; the place where the 
 heart may become aware of its wayward- 
 ness and want and may gain strength to 
 repent and come to Christ and choose the 
 narrow road of life and dedicated service; 
 the place where many have been able to 
 say, with Isaac Penington, "I have met 
 with my God, I have met with my Savior, 
 and He hath not been present with me with- 
 out His salvation, but I have felt the heal- 
 ings drop upon my soul from under His 
 wings." But it is also the place where the 
 worship we render and the life we receive 
 are parts of a fellowship of worship and of 
 life which comes to the meeting as a whole 
 and finds its natural expression through 
 the lips of one and another as the Spirit 
 touches them to utterance. 
 
 There is a third type of meeting, which 
 we may call a teaching meeting, sometimes 
 
 46 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 a Bible class and sometimes a service in 
 which teaching ministry is to the front. 
 There, again, surely you get the same forces 
 in operation. The most vital teaching 
 meetings are those which best combine 
 inspiration, personal influence and fellow- 
 ship. In true educational work the char- 
 acter and the faculties of a group of scholars 
 are being trained by vital contact with 
 one another and with the teacher. The 
 contact of life with life is going on all the 
 time. My friend, Rufus M. Jones, is quite 
 right in saying that the central weakness 
 of the Friends in the past lay in their failure 
 to appreciate the importance of the fullest 
 education of human personaUty in mind 
 and soul, and the attention that is now 
 being given to education in the Society of 
 Friends is of the highest value. We can- 
 not overestimate the promise to American 
 Quakerism and to EngUsh Quakerism' of 
 our great educational institutions. 
 
 V. 
 
 I have now sought to show that Quaker- 
 ism at its best is always the product of 
 
 d7 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 vital forces, and is always producing vital 
 relations. I say "at its best"; that is 
 the necessary qualification. 
 
 This brings me to my last point. What 
 is needed besides the life of the Spirit, the 
 life of Jesus Christ in the Church? Surely 
 what we need is an earnest dedication 
 on the part of those who are seeking to 
 know Jesus Christ. God is a spirit, and 
 they that worship Him must worship in 
 spirit and truth. 
 
 In the early days of Quakerism men were 
 athirst for the gospel of a living Christ. 
 In the present day, side by side with much 
 indifference and indolence there is a wide- 
 spread craving for reality in religion and Ufe. 
 
 Tremendous social problems confront men 
 to-day, new hopes of higher life are coming 
 to the mass of workers, new convictions 
 and new duties are dawning on the world, 
 and fresh questions are being raised in the 
 domains of history, psychology and philos- 
 ophy. We are probably living in the midst 
 of as great a period of transition as that 
 which formed the bridge between the Middle 
 Ages and Modem Europe, and those alone 
 48 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 will find the fuller truth and lead men into 
 it who will bear the travail and foUow 
 the trail of the Seekers of the Light. We 
 want men who will get on the top of the 
 situation, men in the spirit of George Fox. 
 When he was overwhelmed by the confusion 
 of the year of anarchy that preceded the 
 Restoration of 1660, he lay in great exercise 
 of spirit at Reading for ten weeks and he 
 writes: 
 
 "And so when I had travailed with the 
 witness of God which they had quenched 
 and gotten through with it and over aU 
 that hypocrisy ... I came to have ease 
 and the Light shined over aU."* 
 
 It is the duty of the Church to discoun- 
 tenance all the manifold insincerities which 
 disfigure our current Christianity, and to 
 give free scope to honest-hearted love of 
 truth. Sincerity is a plant that thrives 
 under freedom and light, but withers under 
 authority. The Church must use methods 
 of illumination and education and fellow- 
 ship as its means for cherishing true-hearted 
 allegiance to the Lord. It will find these 
 
 * Cambridge Journal, i, 343. 
 49 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 methods more fruitful than methods of 
 authority. Methods of authority may 
 secure an artificial conformity, but it will 
 always be at some expense of sincerity. 
 
 Jesus resolutely turned His back on the 
 quickly won Kingdom of God, to be made 
 up of those who gave Him external obedi- 
 ence; He set Himself to the slow achieve- 
 ment of an inward Kingdom, which should 
 gather men into willing discipleship. 
 
 I desire an atmosphere of large-hearted 
 charity and brotherly confidence, which 
 wiU allow the Seeker after truth to live in 
 the power of his experience, even if it is 
 not a full experience, without being expected 
 to live beyond his experience, an atmosphere 
 which will allow him to make use of aU 
 the great aids which we have to-day in the 
 search after truth — the great aids of scien- 
 tific investigation, and what is still more 
 important, in my opinion, the modern 
 historical method which we are using to-day. 
 We want to have as the motto of our Church 
 the motto of one of our Yorkshire towns, 
 "Weave truth with trust." We want a 
 Church that believes in the nobility of 
 
 50 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 the truth; as this belief prevails amongst 
 us, so shall we find a deeper reality in aU 
 our Church life, and a fresh release of energy 
 and renewal of inspiration. For Quakerism 
 is essentially a religion of sincerity, an- 
 swered by the incoming of the living Christ. 
 
 VI. 
 
 What then shall groups of Friends, who 
 have reached the vital experience of which 
 I have been speaking, do with their expe- 
 rience? Surely there are great demands 
 confronting them to-day, great duties and 
 convictions to be entered upon, great 
 Messianic hopes stirring in the world. 
 This world of change is also a world that is 
 fertile in the promise of richer life. There 
 is the passionate craving after truth. Surely 
 we are to stand for reaUty in religion and 
 life. There is the fresh sense that is coming 
 to men of the meaning and the worth of 
 personahty. Men are learning what the 
 early Friends reached as a fact of inner 
 experience, that their hearts could be places 
 where the Divine side of life could spring 
 up, and that here in this world of our own 
 
 51 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 personality, in personal responsibility, per- 
 sonal dedication, personal service, is the 
 very heart of religion. 
 
 There is another Messianic hope: 
 Woman's place in the universe in equal 
 fellowship with man. Surely we can stand 
 for that. We have expressed that in oiu" 
 Church life long before it came as a great 
 hope to the mass of the people. 
 
 Then there is the hope of the establish- 
 ment of the reign of law instead of brute 
 force in international affairs. We stand 
 and have always stood for that. 
 
 Again, there is the hope of the better 
 ordering of society, removing the menace 
 of destitution from the poor, securing 
 an equality of opportunity for all, remedying 
 the conditions that produce stvmted lives, 
 and giving those whom we caU men the 
 chance to become men in reality. The 
 social regeneration of England and America 
 has become to-day a living Messianic hope, 
 making an insistent demand upon the 
 Christian Church. Surely, with our wit- 
 ness to the practical application of Chris- 
 tianity to every part of life, we stand for 
 
 52 
 
The Essentials of Quakerism 
 
 that. Above all, and finally, there is the 
 great hope of Christ and His Kingdom, not 
 for a few only but for the whole world. 
 With our living experience of Jesus Christ, 
 we must stand for that. Are we not again 
 called to form a vanguard of progress 
 towards the Kingdom of God? Our re- 
 sponse to the call depends upon our personal 
 consecration to the task. Behind the King- 
 dom of God as it is, behind the Kingdom 
 of God as it is to be, there stand the actual 
 groups of disciples, their personal experi- 
 ence, their personal devotion. 
 
 Joseph Sturge, the founder of the Adult 
 School movement, once wrote: "It seems 
 to be the will of Him who is infinite in wis- 
 dom, that hght upon great subjects should 
 first arise and be gradually spread through 
 the faithfulness of individuals in acting 
 up to their own convictions." This per- 
 sonal witness for truth, based upon a living 
 experience of it, is the great duty laid upon 
 each member of the Quaker Church. It 
 carries with it the necessity for self-sacri- 
 fice. We know how the self-sacrifice of 
 our Lord on the cross was the atonement of 
 
 53 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 the world, and the seK-sacrifice of men and 
 women, in the spirit of Jesus Christ, has 
 still redemptive force. 
 
 We see before the Society of Friends, as 
 it renews its spiritual commimion and its 
 warmth of fellowship, a great service for 
 which it has been wonderfully prepared — 
 a service for the revival of vital, prophetic 
 religion and for its expression in righteous- 
 ness of life — ^but the service wiU be fruitful 
 through disciphne and suffering; if it is 
 to be redemptive of society it wiU cost 
 much; those of us who have seen the vision 
 of the future that may be will find oxu- eyes 
 filled with light and our hearts with peace, 
 and our souls wiU know the springings-up 
 of everlasting life and power, but at the 
 same time our feet must be treading the 
 way of the Cross with our Lord. 
 
 54 
 
PART II 
 
 THE CONTRIBUTION OF FRIENDS 
 
 TO THE LIFE AND WORK OF 
 
 THE CHURCH 
 
 BY HENRY T. HODGKIN, M.A., M.B. 
 
 Secretary of the Friends Foreign Mission Association, 
 
 of London, England 
 
 Introductory Words 
 
 After a general introduction I shall 
 refer briefly to some ways in which Friends 
 in the past have made a contribution to 
 the Church's life and work. I shall then 
 set forth under seven heads the distinctive 
 mission which I believe the Society of 
 Friends has to our own generation both in 
 Western lands and in the awakening nations 
 of the East. In closing we may pause to 
 consider what is required in order that this 
 message may be believed in its fuUness and 
 power. 
 
 55 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 During the time that I spent in China as 
 a missionary, it was my privilege to be 
 associated with the members of other 
 Christian bodies who were working along- 
 side of Friends in the Province of Szechwan. 
 For a number of years there has been a 
 large measure of co-operation in the mis- 
 sionary work in that province, in some 
 directions of a more thorough character 
 than in any other part of the mission field. 
 The province was mapped out thirteen years 
 ago between the various missions, and by 
 this means overlapping has been avoided 
 and great harmony has prevailed. To such 
 an extent has this been the case that, at 
 the Conference of West China Missions 
 held in Chengtu in 1908, the ideal of "One 
 Protestant Christian Church for West 
 China" was imanimously adopted by k 
 gathering representing the missions of six 
 different denominations, and two inter- 
 denominational societies. It was also 
 resolved ''that whereas all Christian mis- 
 sions laboring in West China have for their 
 
 56 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 aim the establishment of the Kingdom of 
 God, and whereas there is a sincere desire 
 for more co-operation and a closer union 
 of our Churches, this Conference recom- 
 mends the free interchange of fuU members 
 on a recommendation from the Pastor of 
 the Church from which they come." This 
 remarkable action on the part of the West 
 China Missionary Conference compelled 
 me to look into the problem suggested by 
 the title of this address in an altogether 
 new way. If we were really working for a 
 single imited Church, what was to be the 
 contribution of oiu" Society: had we in 
 fact anything distinctive and vital to give, 
 and in what way were we to give it? The 
 still more remarkable gathering held at 
 Edinburgh in 1910, and the contact which I 
 have since had with members of other 
 Christian bodies in following up the results 
 of that Conference, have pressed the ques- 
 tion home with renewed force. 
 
 To many it may seem that the ideal 
 of a single organically united Christian 
 Church is a wild and impracticable dream. 
 To some it will appear as an altogether 
 
 57 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 undesirable object to set before ourselves. 
 We are indeed perpetually reminded in a 
 variety of ways of the inestimable gain which 
 comes to the Kingdom of God through the 
 wide differences of opinion and view-point 
 represented by the existing sections of the 
 Christian Church. If union spelt uni- 
 formity, I confess that I should be 
 found amongst its strongest opponents. 
 If, indeed, it stood for merging all differ- 
 ences and an emphasis upon nothing beyond 
 the minimum upon which we are aU agreed, 
 I could not look forward with any satisfac- 
 tion to such a prospect. To me, however, 
 union stands for something far other. My 
 ideal of it is represented by the following 
 sentence from the report presented to the 
 Edinburgh Conference on this subject: 
 "They desire that . . . those who are 
 at present separated should seek to be led 
 by the Spirit of God into a unity in which 
 aU that is true and vital in the principles 
 and practices of each may be preserved 
 and reconciled. . . . Unity when it 
 comes must be something richer, grander, 
 more comprehensive than anything which 
 
 58 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 we can see at present. It is something into 
 which and up to which we must grow, 
 something of which and for which we must 
 become worthy. We need to have sufficient 
 faith in God to believe that He can bring 
 us to something higher and more Christ- 
 like than anything to which at present we 
 see away."* 
 
 It is not, however necessary for us to 
 determine in our own minds what is the 
 ideal towards which the Christian Church 
 is moving, or ought to move, in regard to 
 this particular problem. One thing is 
 abundantly clear, and that is that, if our 
 own generation is to receive and respond 
 to the Christian message, every section of 
 the Church must bring its best contribu- 
 tion. No one section will, in itself, contain 
 the whole of truth. In this day of Foreign 
 Missions we are enabled to see on the 
 horizon the glorious ideal of the Kingdom 
 of God into which each nation and each 
 race shall contribute its own distinctive 
 elements of moral strength and spiritual 
 
 * Report of World's Missionary Conference, vol. viii, pp. 
 137, 138. 
 
 59 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 iUumination. Even so may we not conceive, 
 as a preparation for this end, the delivery 
 of a Christian message more comprehensive 
 than any which has been delivered to the 
 world since Apostolic days? If this message 
 is to be delivered, either at home or abroad, 
 there must be a larger sympathy and a 
 better miderstanding between the various 
 Christian commimions. Each must seek 
 to interpret its own message in terms 
 intelligible to the others: each must make 
 a patient endeavor to appreciate the 
 strength and beauty of that which has 
 been committed to other Christian com- 
 munions with which it has perhaps hitherto 
 been at war. Whether this will ultimately 
 lead into an organic imity or not none of 
 us can possibly say. Whether, indeed, we 
 should work for organic unity or not wiU 
 evoke large divergence of opinion. Whether 
 or not we should cultivate the spirit of 
 unity — the atmosphere in which the beauti- 
 ful flower of unity will come to perfection — 
 this is a question upon which there can 
 surely be no divergence of view. 
 I approach this question as one who 
 
 60 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 dares to believe that Christianity is the 
 future religion of mankind. I believe this 
 because I see no other religious system in 
 the least degree competent to take this 
 place. I believe it because the closer 
 linking of mankind by commercial and 
 intellectual bonds appears to me as nothing 
 less than a preparation for the linking 
 together of the whole human race in one 
 great spiritual kingdom. I beUeve it 
 because I see in the Man Christ Jesus the 
 One who alone can appeal to all ages and 
 all races and aU classes of men: who is 
 in very truth the Son of Man. I believe 
 it supremely because I see in Him the only 
 begotten Son of God sent into the world 
 for the redemption of mankind, and offering 
 His hfe as the one supreme sacrifice for the 
 sins of the whole world. It is with nothing 
 short of a passionate longing that I desire 
 that the Society of Friends may make its 
 full contribution to the achievement of 
 this glorious ideal. In the great purposes 
 of God the full content of truth will, I feel 
 assured, be some day discovered and fol- 
 lowed by a redeemed hvunanity. For the 
 
 61 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 Society of Friends, which has abeady played 
 a great part in leading men into the truth, 
 I am ambitious that we may not, through 
 any failure of spiritual perception or moral 
 earnestness, lose the opportimity of giving 
 what has been given to us. That which we 
 have, we hold in trust for the Church and 
 for the world. 
 
 On this occasion, it is not my purpose to 
 enlarge upon the contribution of our Society 
 to the world. In common with aU the 
 Christian Churches, we have a great message 
 to deliver. Even as George Fox said in his 
 day we are charged primarily with "the 
 preaching of the Everlasting Gospel." The 
 great essentials of this gospel — ^the Divine 
 Sonship of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ : 
 His great sacrifice for sin: His victory over 
 it in His resurrection: the gift of His Holy 
 Spirit — these are the things which bind us 
 together with all sections of the Christian 
 Church, and which give us, in common 
 with them, a life-giving message to our 
 own generation. I wish it to be clear that, 
 in passing over these fundamental ques- 
 tions, it is not because I lightly esteem them; 
 
 62 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 but simply because I feel so sure that we 
 here are united with one another and with 
 all who truly call upon the name of Christ, 
 and because I wish rather to emphasize 
 and plead for a more deliberate and sjrm- 
 pathetic attempt to bring the message of 
 Quakerism to our own generation. 
 
 But I do this in no narrow sectarian 
 spirit. It may be that the following 
 recollection of a Quaker boyhood represents 
 to some extent the attitude which many 
 of us have held at one time in our lives. 
 'I said 'thee' and 'thy' to everybody, 
 and I would fully as soon have used profane 
 words as have said 'you' or 'yours' to any 
 person. I thought only 'Friends' went to 
 heaven, and so I supposed that the use of 
 'thee' and 'thy' was one of the main things 
 that determined whether one would be let 
 in or not. Nobody ever told me anything 
 Uke this and if I had asked anybody at 
 home about it, I should have had my views 
 corrected. But for a number of years this 
 was my settled faith. I pitied the poor 
 neighbors who would never be let in, and 
 I wondered why everybody did not 'join 
 
 63 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 the Meeting' and learn to say 'thee' and 
 ' thy.' I had one little Gentile friend whom 
 I could not bear to have 'lost/ and I went 
 faithfully to work and taught him 'the 
 language/ which he always used with me 
 till he was ten or twelve years old, when the 
 strain of the world got too heavy upon the 
 little fellow! I am quite sure no Israelite, 
 in the days of Israel's prosperity, ever had 
 a more certain conviction that he belonged 
 to a peculiar people whom the Lord had 
 chosen as His own than I had. There 
 was for me an absolute break between 
 'us' and anybody else. This Pharisee- 
 ism was never taught me nor encouraged 
 directly by anybody; but I none the less 
 had it. If I had anything in the world 
 to glory over, it was that I was a Quaker."* 
 I have no doubt that we shall all wish 
 to banish from our minds any lingering 
 suspicion of such a spirit as is represented, 
 by these words. To us it must be clear 
 that no one sect is the sole repository of 
 truth, and that others may have more to 
 
 *"A Boy's Religion from Memory," by Rufus M. Jones, 
 pp. 24, 25. 
 
 64 
 
« 
 The Contribution of Friends 
 
 give than we; but this attitude is not 
 inconsistent with a clear sense of what is 
 entrusted to us and an intense desire to 
 share it with all. 
 
 Again I want to make it clear, in referring 
 to various elements of the Quaker contri- 
 bution, that I am well aware that in respect 
 of many of these questions there are many 
 individuals belonging to other Christian 
 denominations who hold the same views 
 and exemplify in their lives the same moral 
 qualities. I think, however, that I am right 
 in saying that in each case Friends hold a 
 distinctive position through the fact that 
 they, as an organization, stand for these 
 views of truth and, in some cases, exhibit 
 them through that organization in a way 
 which it is not possible for them to be 
 exhibited in the Uves of single individuals. 
 
 II. 
 
 When one looks back upon the past 250 
 years and attempts to estimate the value 
 of Friends to the Christian life of England 
 and America, there are certain outstanding 
 features which at once arrest attention. 
 
 65 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 Amongst the chief contributions which 
 the Society has been successful in making 
 hitherto to the Christian life of England and 
 America are the following: ,,;,? .! 
 
 1. At a time when religion was in danger 
 of becoming, to a large extent, formal, 
 ceremonial and external, the early Friends 
 succeeded in calling the attention of their 
 own generation to the necessity for a vital, 
 inward experience. They undoubtedly 
 helped many besides those who actually 
 joined with them into a clearer imder- 
 standing of the inwardness of the Christian 
 gospel, and into a personal experience of 
 the living and indwelling Christ. 
 
 2. The Reformation and post-Reforma- 
 tion period was marked by that intensity 
 of religious conviction which so often leads' 
 to intolerance and religious bigotry. Evenj 
 those who had suffered persecution them-' 
 selves followed the very example one would 
 have expected them to avoid as soon as 
 the opportunity occurred. That our spirit- 
 ual forefathers had an immense influence 
 upon that age, in bringing about a greater 
 spirit of religious toleration, cannot be 
 
 66 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 doubted by any who read carefully the 
 religious history of that time. 
 
 3. From the day that William Penn 
 
 entered into treaty with the Red Indian 
 
 Chiefs tUl the day when John Woolman 
 
 made his protest against Negro Slavery, 
 
 and on till John Greenleaf Whittier thrilled 
 ^~- - -. 
 
 the nation with -the"" songs which called to 
 love and ^brotherhood, Friends have con- 
 sistently^ stood fofT an attitude of sym- 
 pathetic understanding of other races. No- 
 where perhaps has this been more publicly 
 and more deservedly acknowledged than 
 by the action of President Grant in handing 
 over to Friends the management of certaia 
 reservations for Red Indians, a policy 
 which he declared had proved "most satis- 
 factory." 
 
 4, Even at the time when Quakerism 
 ceased to be a powerful evangeUcai force, 
 and when Friends seem to have lost some- 
 thing of their first love, the Society was 
 producing men and women of outstanding 
 Christian character, who were known to 
 be no hypocrites; whose word was their 
 bond; whose business integrity was prover- 
 
 67 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 bial and whose character for truthfuhiess 
 and honesty was surely an outstanding 
 contribution to the Christian hfe of the 
 eighteenth century. This type of character 
 has, I beheve, been largely maintained 
 till the present day. 
 
 5. And lastly, scarcely any great philan- 
 thropic movement has risen during the last 
 200 years which has not had the support 
 of Friends; and notable cases could be 
 quoted to show the way in which Friends 
 have taken the lead in such matters. Espe- 
 cially at times when religious revival has 
 taken on emotional forms, and when the 
 emphasis has been thrown almost exclu- 
 sively upon the subjective side, it has been 
 of great benefit to the Church to have 
 the association of practical philanthropy 
 with the very Society which has always 
 insisted on the necessity for an inward 
 experience. 
 
 I refer to these few historic examples 
 in order to illustrate the way in which I 
 am approaching the question, and to show 
 how a particular Christian Society has, 
 for upwards of 250 years, been steadily 
 
 68 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 bringing its influence to bear upon the 
 Christian life of two great nations. In 
 looking back upon the past, we may truly 
 thank God and take courage. Let there 
 be no thought of arrogance in our minds; 
 but rather of deep humility, as we proceed 
 to look into the problems which confront 
 us to-day, and consider in what direction 
 our Society may contribute towards their 
 solution. 
 
 III. 
 
 In whatever direction we look to-day, 
 we see the danger of an invading material- 
 ism. By this I do not mean any philosophic 
 position. In fact, I do not believe that 
 what might be called philosophic material- 
 ism is gaining ground at the present time. 
 It does seem to me, however, that a prac- 
 tical agnosticism is making itseK felt in 
 very many quarters. The vague sense that 
 God is responsible for the Universe, that 
 at one time some great Cause operated to 
 bring it all into being and that, in some 
 way, we are all still depending upon the 
 benevolent activity of that Cause, is not 
 
 69 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 Christianity. The Christian Church is 
 being invaded by this uncertainty with 
 regard to God. There is a loosening, it 
 seems to me, of that close grip upon the 
 eternal verities which enables men perpetu- 
 ally to draw upon the resources of God,' 
 to throw themselves in the abandonment of 
 faith upon a living Savior and to find that] 
 faith justified at every step of the way.' 
 Men do not like to set forth upon a path 
 without knowing whither it leads. The 
 prevailing scientific temper leads men to 
 test everything many times, to trust nothing 
 beyond the range of verifiable scientific 
 facts. This breeds a spirit which only takes 
 cognizance of the things which can be seen 
 and felt and weighed and measured. Where 
 is there room in this narrowed universe for 
 the limitless activity of the God of Love? 
 When we turn our eyes to the non- 
 Christian world, the danger becomes more 
 startlingly apparent. Here are the "child 
 races" filled with that sense of the mystery 
 and awe which the little child, even in our 
 materialistic modern world, still has. The 
 savage thinks of God as infinitely near, 
 
 70 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 or at least he thinks tha? the spirits of the 
 departed are. It needs no carefully stated 
 argument to demonstrate the existence of 
 an unknown world. It lies all about and 
 around. He is reminded of it by the thun- 
 der and the lightning. And to him there 
 comes our modern education explaining 
 away aU the beautiful or the dreadful 
 mystery of life, and, before he knows what 
 has happened, he is losing his sense of God. 
 The old sanctions are loosened as the old 
 fear is removed, and he has got helplessly 
 adrift into the mid-stream of a barren 
 rationalism. 
 
 What are we to do for him and what are 
 we to do for the modern man in our midst? 
 We shaU not have to go very far to search 
 for those who stiU find the remedy in an 
 elaborate and beautiful religious ceremonial; 
 who will teU us that it is foolish to build our 
 religious conviction upon mere personal 
 experience: that we are rather to turn back 
 to the experience of the Christian Church. 
 We are to observe its ordinances perfectly. 
 There are to be stated seasons of prayer: 
 there are to be stated means of grace: 
 
 71 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 I. ' 
 and through these, whether you feel any 
 bettor for it or not, you will be brought 
 into line with the experience of the Catholic 
 Church and become partakers of Heavenly 
 grace. I am far from denying that beautiful 
 forms of worship, that stated seasons of 
 prayer, or that time-honored ritual may 
 have a real place in the spiritual (>xperit'iuH' 
 of very many. Doubtless, these things 
 have been of value in bringing numbers of 
 souls into the Kingdom of God, and will 
 still be so. To me it seems, however, 
 that they are fraught with great danger. 
 Especially at the present time, when men 
 intensely desire reality, they are apt to 
 become impatient with the forms of a 
 bygone age, however zealously they may 
 be followed by some of their contem- 
 poraries. And, on the other hand, there are 
 those who are too readily content with the 
 outward and allow the mere forms of 
 religion to salve the uneasy conscienc(\ 
 Was there, I wonder, ever a time when 
 men needed more than they do to-day a 
 clear summons into a life of spiritual reality 
 and of personal intimate knowledge of God? 
 
 72 
 
The Contribution of Friends^ > 
 
 Can we summon them back as did our 
 forefathers? Have we the message that 
 they had? Can we say, as did Francis 
 Howgill, "The Lord appeared daily to us 
 to our astonishment, amazement and great 
 admiration, insomuch that we often said 
 one to another with great joy of heart, 
 'What! Is the Kingdom of God come to 
 be with men?'" The message sent forth 
 by the Edinburgh Conference to the whole 
 Church of Christ called her to realize that 
 "God is demanding of us aU a new order 
 of hfe. . . . that He is greater, more 
 loving, nearer and more available for our 
 help and comfort than any man has 
 dreamed." If there was one thing which 
 the Society of Friends was called into 
 existence to proclaim, it was this very truth. 
 Are we proclaiming it to-day? And, for 
 the non-Christian world, how great is the 
 danger of substituting one set of ceremonies 
 for another. To those who have been in the 
 habit of trusting to such barren rites as the 
 burning of paper money, the washing in 
 the Ganges and the sacred but often most 
 unholy feasts, how easy it is to allow the 
 
 73 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 burning of incense or the rites of Baptism 
 or the Holy Communion to take the same 
 place in their thoughts and to be trusted 
 for salvation or merit in the same way.; 
 In fact, one of our own missionaries in 
 Ceylon was a man who had, for some 
 years, worked in connection with another 
 Society, and who had found that he was in 
 constant difficulty because he was building 
 up with one hand what he had to remove 
 with the other. He came to the conclusion 
 that, if he was to help men into a personal 
 experience of Christ, he must take away 
 entirely aU possibility of trusting to out- 
 ward rites, and preach to them the simple 
 Quaker message. When the Friend mis- 
 sionaries in China met after the West China 
 Conference to consider the way in which 
 we might express in a few words the 
 contribution of Friends towards the doc- 
 trine and practice of a Union Church, they 
 drew up a brief statement which contains 
 the following words under the heading of 
 "sacraments." These words are intended 
 to convey the essence of the Quaker posi- 
 tion on this point. 
 
 74 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 1. "The Pre-eminence of the Spiritual 
 Experience. 
 
 2. "The Spiritual Experience may be 
 reaUzed independently of any special occa- 
 sion, rite, or mediating person, except our 
 Lord. 
 
 3. " Membership of the Church of Christ 
 is of such a character that any outward 
 recognition fails adequately to determine 
 it." 
 
 If the complete Christian message is 
 to be given, if the Christian Church is to 
 enter fully into an imderstanding of the 
 mind of the Master, this aspect of truth 
 needs to be emphasized, not only by words 
 but by lives, and not only by the Uves of 
 individuals but by that added emphasis 
 which comes through the existence of a 
 corporate Body, whose very existence 
 depends upon the vahdity of this tremen- 
 dous fact. Our position as a Society does 
 depend upon this truth, and out of it grow 
 many other of our special contributions, 
 if not aU. We are set in the world of to-day 
 to testify to a truth the enunciation of 
 which has never been more urgently or 
 
 75 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 more widely needed. The whole Church 
 of Christ should be sounding forth this 
 message. She needs, therefore, a body of 
 persons who stand for the principle that God 
 deals directly with every soul of man, ever 
 challenging the spirit of man to rest in noth- 
 ing short of direct personal intercourse with 
 God. 
 
 IV. 
 
 No one can be blind to the way in which 
 every detail of our life is being modified 
 by the many new inventions which acceler- 
 ate the rate of living. We crowd into a 
 single day more than our forefathers could 
 put into a week. The express train, the 
 telegraph and the telephone, the type- 
 writer, the multiplied devices for saving 
 time — all these things are speeding up 
 life to the point at which the time for 
 meditation and quiet is crowded out. This 
 is surely a great and growing danger of 
 which none of us is wholly unconscious. ^ 
 
 I have been surprised to find in how many 
 different circles there is at the present 
 time a feeling of dissatisfaction with the 
 
 76 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 forms of worship which have for long^ been 
 regarded as sufficiently satisfactory. I 
 know a number of cases where, in high 
 church circles, prominent people are feel- 
 ing after something more akin to a Quaker 
 Meeting than anything else. I am also 
 intimately associated with some of the most 
 living movements in my own country, 
 in which meetings have been held on the 
 same hues. This does not mean that 
 great value does not still attach to regular 
 arranged services. No doubt the vast 
 majority of those who attend the services 
 of the Anglican Church are stiU finding 
 out that their spiritual needs are met 
 thereby; but, there are others, and some 
 of them are choice spirits, who feel the 
 need of more liberty and who crave for 
 more stillness in their worship. They are 
 coming to recognize the great danger of 
 the regular pre-arranged service such as is 
 usual in most other denominations. They 
 fear, perhaps, the invasion of the sanctuary 
 by the spirit of rush and hurry. 
 
 Turning to the mission field, I could 
 quote many examples which show the way 
 
 77 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 in which the Quaker form of worship 
 appeals to some of those who are being 
 brought out of heathenism. I think of 
 one young man, a close personal friend of 
 my own in China, who, having attended 
 one or two Friends' Meetings, came to us 
 and urged us, at a very early stage in our 
 mission work in Chengtu, to establish a 
 regular Friends' Meeting in addition to 
 the ordinary mission services; and I recall 
 with keen satisfaction the experiment which 
 we made and the true worship into which 
 Chinese and English together entered and 
 the helpful and inspired ministry which 
 arose out of it. A leading Indian Christian, 
 describing the estabhshment of the National 
 Missionary Society of India, explained to 
 a Friend the way in which the Christians 
 had met together for united worship, 
 sitting as he said often as much as half an 
 hour in silence and then breaking out, as 
 prompted by the Spirit, into prayer and 
 praise. "We," he said, "find this most 
 helpful; it means a great deal to us, and 
 we have meetings of this kind before every 
 one of our business sessions; but," he con- 
 
 78 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 tinued, "you won't be able to understand 
 it; it is so different from your English 
 ways." You can imagine his surprise on 
 being told that he had almost exactly 
 described the way in which the Friend to 
 whom he was speaking habitually wor- 
 shiped. Not long ago I took a friend of 
 mine to Meeting. He was a man who had 
 spent some years in India and had become 
 intimately associated with a number of 
 Indian students. After Meeting he asked 
 me if our Meetings were open to the public; 
 because, if so, he would like to bring some of 
 his Indian friends to Meeting, as he felt 
 it was exactly the thing which would help 
 them. 
 
 It seems to me that, in the forms of 
 worship in other Churches, we have either 
 on the one hand a imited act of wor- 
 ship which is to some extent formal, as 
 when the congregation joins in the sing- 
 ing of a hymn or in a set prayer; or 
 else on the other hand we have an 
 individual act which is not formal but 
 inspired, as when a man fiUed with a mes- 
 sage from God delivers it to the congrega- 
 
 79 
 
Message and Mission of Qu akerism 
 
 tion. I know no other form of worship 
 which fulfils my idea of a united act inspired 
 of God. As we wait together upon Him 
 we are together called into His Holy pres- 
 ence. The silence represents to us not 
 merely the touch of each individual spirit 
 with the Spirit of God; it represents rather 
 the uniting of our spirits together in har- 
 mony with His Spirit. Thus are we priv- 
 ileged to understand something of that true 
 Communion of the Saints which is to be 
 fully experienced in the life beyond. A 
 Friends' Meeting filled with the sense of 
 the presence of God is, to my mind, one of 
 the chief contributions which Friends ought 
 to be making to the life of the Church of 
 Christ. This ideal was well expressed by 
 T. R. Glover in the Swarthmore Lecture. 
 
 "When it is real worship, common wor- 
 ship may take the individual soul a good 
 deal further than it may go alone. We make 
 the atmosphere for one another — courage, 
 depression, hope, study, reflection or what- 
 ever it may be; and faith is, as a matter 
 of fact, as liable to be helped as hindered 
 by environment. Prayer, when it is reaUty, 
 
 80 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 and when it is the common activity in one 
 place at one time of a community of like 
 experience, may reach a higher plane than 
 we have known before, not as a matter of 
 mere emotion but with results that do not 
 pass away. 
 
 "Love is reinforced by this solidarity 
 of the Christian communion, for in it 
 Christ becomes more real, and things are 
 apt to be seen here sub specie aeternitatis 
 in their true proportions. Such vision of 
 reality will over and over again be trans- 
 lated into action and consecration. The 
 common worship, if it is the act of aU, and 
 done in deep seriousness, passes out of the 
 formal into the e£fective, with or without 
 mystical rite or element, it becomes com- 
 munion, and we imderstand in a new and 
 quieter way what the early Church meant 
 by its doctrine of the Holy Spirit. God's 
 Spirit is not bound by our choosing, but it 
 is possible for us to become more receptive. 
 It is easy to see how men have come to the 
 view that through the Church the gift of 
 the Spirit is mediated."* 
 
 * Swaxthmore Lecture, 1912, pp. 68, 69. 
 81 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 He has to add however, "It is, I think, 
 right to say here that these paragraphs 
 are an epitome of my observations and 
 experience of the Student Christian Move- 
 ment;" a statement which may well sug- 
 gest to us in England that our Meetings 
 have not been all they might have been in 
 recent years. Although I do not consider 
 the following statement as satisfactory as 
 that previously quoted from the same 
 source, I should like again to refer to the 
 statement drawn up by the members of 
 the Friends' Mission in West China. 
 
 "1. United worship should provide 
 opportunities for the Spirit of God to deal 
 individually with each worshiper as well 
 as for each worshiper to approach to God 
 in the way best suited to his individuality. 
 
 "2. Each individual has a ministry for 
 the benefit of all, to be exercised in spirit, 
 and the true worship of believers depends 
 upon the faithfulness of each. 
 
 "3. Worship should provide an oppor- 
 tunity for this ministry to assume vocal 
 form, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, 
 who may thus use any worshiper." 
 
 82 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 I recently received a letter from one of 
 the most prominent religious leaders in this 
 country in which he said: "This morning 
 I attended the Old Friends' Meeting here 
 in Philadelphia and was much refreshed in 
 spirit. I believe we must have more of the 
 spirit of the Friends if we are to save 
 North American Christianity." 
 
 If meetings such as these have a real and 
 timely message to-day, it becomes us to 
 see that we do not lower our ideal and 
 that we strive to achieve it more nearly in 
 every meeting we hold. For the Church 
 needs a quiet place in which its members 
 can together hear God's voice and find afresh 
 the message and the power to believe it. It 
 needs to learn how to wait upon God. 
 
 V. 
 One of the most notable features of the 
 last century has been the progress of the 
 democratic movement. Every one who 
 has watched that movement must realize 
 the great danger of the tyranny of majori- 
 ties. It is true that this danger seems to 
 most of us to-day a smaller one than the 
 
 83 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 danger of the tyranny of a bureaucracy 
 or of an autocrat. But, whichever way 
 we look at it, it does not seem that we have 
 found the true solution. Is it not possible 
 that the pendulum has swung too far and 
 that we have yet to discover the highest 
 principle upon which a State may be 
 governed? 
 
 In the new democracies of the East there 
 is perhaps a greater danger, owing to the 
 rapidity with which the new ideas have 
 spread and the lack of an understanding 
 of the deeper principles out of which they 
 spring. Those who have closely followed 
 affairs in the Far East will realize with 
 what anxious eyes Japan has been watching 
 the democratic movement in China, and 
 how she would have given almost anything 
 to preserve at least the name of monarchy 
 for China. In India and in other nations 
 the desire for an independent government 
 and the rule of the people is outrxmning 
 the growth in ability to fulfil such functions. 
 The spread of democracy and the desire 
 for national independence is making itself 
 felt, not only in the State but also in the 
 
 M 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 young Churches in the Far East. On the 
 one hand we have those systems of Church 
 Government which are classed together as 
 Episcopal, and in which the authority is 
 vested in a comparatively few. On the 
 other hand we have Churches which pin 
 their faith to the old adage "vox populi 
 vox Dei." 
 
 I question whether either has found the 
 solution to the difficulty of the young 
 Church. In both systems there lurk dan- 
 gers which can here only be hinted at. 
 
 It has often seemed to me that Friends 
 do not reaUze how much they have in 
 their Meetings for Discipline. I believe 
 that we have here a most valuable contribu- 
 tion towards the solution of the difficulty 
 at which I have hinted. We have at least 
 an ideal which we ought to be most careful 
 not to surrender. Let me explain a little 
 more fully what I mean. 
 
 We meet together on the assumption that 
 Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church and 
 that we can trust Him to lead it. We 
 enter upon the discussion of a difficult 
 matter of business with the full knowledge 
 
 85 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 that many different shades of opinion will 
 be represented in that meeting. Never- 
 theless, we discuss it with the confidence 
 that the will of God will be made known 
 to us as a Body of persons, and through the 
 whole Body; not that is to say merely 
 through the individual or set of individuals 
 who act as a Cabinet, nor even through the 
 majority of those present. We discuss the 
 question together and we believe that, at 
 the end of that discussion, we shall be led 
 to a united judgment as to the wisdom of 
 a certain course of action. That judgment 
 may not be the opinion of any one individual 
 in the room. It may be the opinion of the 
 actual minority of those present; but, if 
 we are in a true Friends' Meeting for 
 Discipline, we come out of that room all of 
 us satisfied that the Spirit of God has 
 HimseK determined our action and that 
 He has, as it were, made Himself respon- 
 sible for it. If we entered our Meetings 
 for Discipline in this spirit, they would 
 assuredly be a sacrament to every one of 
 us. There is need for as much consecra- 
 tion of heart in them as in the Meeting 
 
 86 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 for Worship; and perhaps more, for it is 
 not easy to give up one's own pet theories 
 and prejudices. If this call to sacrifice 
 is cheerfully accepted, our Meetings for 
 Discipline should be of untold blessing to 
 each of us; and thus there would be a chance 
 for us to do our part in the solution of this 
 most difl&cult problem. The end towards 
 which we are working is the Kingdom of 
 God — ^neither a democracy nor bureaucracy, 
 but a theocracy. Here again I am encour- 
 aged by noticing in some movements 
 with which I have been connected in recent 
 years, a tendency to foUow in certain lines 
 the methods which Friends have adopted in 
 their Meetings for Discipline. I refer 
 especially to certain Missionary Conferences 
 and Committees with which I am connected, 
 and to my experience in the Student 
 Christian Movement of Great Britain and 
 Ireland, And to apply this more particu- 
 larly to the conditions in the mission field 
 at the present time: in every mission we 
 find this restless desire for autonomy. 
 If we truly believe that the Spirit of Christ 
 is present in the Church itself, surely there 
 
 87 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 need be no fear in our standing aside as 
 foreigners and leaving the Church to Him 
 who has been the Founder of it and who is 
 Himself responsible for its future. If, 
 on the other hand, we leave only the ideal 
 of government by certain Bishops specially 
 chosen, or by a majority which can perhaps 
 be maneuvred in the interests of a particular 
 person or opinion, we shall indeed have 
 grave cause to fear for the Church as it 
 is left to itself. 
 
 To those not accustomed to such pro- 
 cedure this seems, no doubt, like a wild 
 impossibility. To Friends it is a serious 
 truth and the experience of this one Chris- 
 tian body has demonstrated, amid much 
 failure at times, its entire practicability 
 as a method of transacting business. 
 Whether or no this method be adopted by 
 wider circles, it is nevertheless true that 
 the Church needs a deeper conviction of the 
 active presence of God "in the midst of 
 her," not merely to inspire the individual 
 but also to direct the counsels of the body as 
 a whole. 
 
 88 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 VT. 
 
 Next to the danger of materialism or 
 practical agnosticism in the Church of 
 Christ comes perhaps the danger of oppor- 
 tmiism. I suppose to the end of time there 
 will be difference of opinion on the question 
 of compromise. That a certain element of 
 compromise must come into human life, 
 as it is now arranged, seems to me inevitable. 
 Much as we chafe against it, we are bound 
 to accept it, owing to the hmitations of 
 our existence here. To take one of many- 
 examples: I suppose there is no one of us 
 who does not year by year contribute, 
 through the payment of taxes either direct 
 or indirect, to the maintenance of the Army 
 and the Navy, and perhaps to other actions 
 on the part of the State with which he 
 equally disapproves. There is, however, a 
 whole range of problems upon which opin- 
 ions differ very greatly. The question 
 to which I have made allusion — the ques- 
 tion of Peace — illustrates my meaning per- 
 haps as well as any. At what point are we 
 going to make our Peace principles felt? 
 
 89 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 There are certain fundamental proposi- 
 tions to which every member of the Church 
 of Christ can be found to assent. That 
 we should love our enemies: that we should 
 do good to those that hate us: that we 
 should show kindness to all men: and so 
 forth. But at what point are you going 
 to apply these principles? We are living 
 in a world where some kind of physical 
 force seems to be absolutely necessary. 
 I doubt if there are any of us who would 
 go as far as Tolstoi in our rejection of it. 
 
 But does this mean that we must there- 
 fore accept war as a necessity of this present 
 evil time, and therefore be prepared our- 
 selves to take up arms, as many of our 
 fellow-Christians think? The "practical 
 commonsense man" sees no other course, 
 even if his conscience do cry out at times. 
 
 To take another of the great problems 
 which press upon us in these days, viz: 
 the relation of Christianity to business, 
 "Business is business" too often means 
 that Christian principles cannot be applied 
 to it. There are so many things a man 
 "must do" if he is to get along at all. 
 
 90 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 "It is better to leave religion out altogether 
 in some of these practical affairs." In 
 non-Christian countries we constantly see 
 the divorce of ethics from religion; and 
 I am afraid the evil is not confined to dis- 
 tant lands. We all know something of 
 the pulpit that dare not denoimce the sins 
 practiced by the wealthiest of the congre- 
 gation: the minister whose tongue is tied 
 upon sweating and overcrowding: the 
 church-member who is zealous in the ob- 
 servance of religion, but lacking in his busi- 
 ness obligations. 
 
 What a need for the thoroughgoing 
 Christian who has ideals and maintains 
 them in everyday life, who will not lower 
 them to suit the exigencies of life, or the 
 pressure of social custom, to whom expe- 
 diency is a forbidden word even though 
 its exclusion may mean the Cross! 
 
 Or turn to the great non-Christian world 
 with which we are daUy brought into con- 
 tact. Here is one of the greatest problems, 
 if not the greatest, which confronts our 
 civilization to-day. How are we going to 
 meet our fellow-men of other races? The 
 
 91 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 I 
 politician has his solution: the commercial 
 man has his. What is to be the solution 
 of the citizen of the Kingdom of God? 
 There can only be one answer: we must 
 go to these men as to those who are our 
 brethren; we must see them not as wholly 
 bad or depraved, but as those who have in 
 them infinite potentialities, who are called 
 into the same citizenship and the same son- 
 ship which we enjoy. We must reaffirm 
 to-day our belief in that Light which lighteth 
 every man, but we dare not be content at 
 that. As our forefathers led the way in 
 the understanding of sympathy with other 
 races; so we to whom these stiU more 
 intricate problems present themselves, must 
 stand for the ideal, however hard it seems — 
 the ideal of spiritual kinship and the stren- 
 uous effort to reaUze it in our relationship 
 with other races; and so it comes about 
 that the Foreign Missionary enterprise 
 seems to be of the very essence of Quaker- 
 ism, and that we find it closely akin to the 
 great causes of Peace and Anti-slavery 
 with which our Society has ever been 
 identified. Is the Church of Christ playing 
 
 92 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 the part which it ought to play in regard 
 to these matters? Is it taking the stand 
 which it ought to take in regard to the 
 color problem in this country, in regard 
 to the export of spirituous liquors, and so 
 forth? What, indeed, is to be our view of a 
 Christian Mission College which deliber- 
 ately includes in its curriculum mihtary 
 drill with the full paraphernalia of warfare, 
 and this in the traditionally peace-loving 
 empire of China? To me it seems evident 
 that there is a great place for the Society 
 of Friends in this movement, just because 
 we stand upon the side of idealism in all 
 these complicated issues. 
 
 Right along the line Quakerism ranks 
 itself on this side. The Society of Friends, 
 as I read its history, has stood for an 
 ideahsm which is well in advance of the 
 current practice. In the holding of our 
 Meetings for Worship we have stood 
 for the absolute ideal; many of our 
 Christian brethren admit it in theory, but 
 regard it as quite outside the sphere of 
 practical religion. The same seems to be 
 true as regards the Sacraments, Oaths, and 
 
 93 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 so forth. The idealist is needed as much 
 to-day as ever he was. The moral reforms, 
 to the achievement of which Friends have 
 contributed so much, have been attained 
 by men who dared to be regarded as 
 utterly impracticable, as mere dreamers 
 and visionaries. When slavery, for ex- 
 ample, was knit into the very fabric of 
 Society, when its abolition seemed certain 
 to lead to an industrial cataclysm, Friends 
 were not wanting who boldly said, "What- 
 ever happens, we must liberate the slave;" 
 and in the end the visionary was right and 
 the practical common-sense man was wrong; 
 and the simple secret of it aU was that the 
 visionary saw God first and his feUow-men 
 in the light of God's wiU for them. 
 
 No less has it been true in business 
 affairs that Friends have maintained the 
 strictest standard of integrity in the face of 
 opposition and probable loss. They recog- 
 nized a higher obUgation which must be 
 obeyed whatever the consequence which 
 faced them. And in the strength of that 
 idealism they won their way to the respect 
 and confidence of their fellows. In the end 
 
 94 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 they were often found to be the more 
 practical in spite of (or was it because of?) 
 their unreasoning idealism. "It was in 
 this focussing upon moral effort that the 
 Quakers differed most from the other sects 
 of the Commonwealth period. Their 
 'views' were not novel or original. Every- 
 one of their pectdiar views had already 
 been proclaimed by some individual or by 
 some religious party. What was new was 
 the fixing of their ideas into one living truth, 
 which was henceforth to be done, was to 
 be put into Ufe and made to march."* 
 
 And to-day, if the Society is true to its 
 past it will not lose the chance of standing 
 on the same side for the ideal, the Chris- 
 tian and the only final solution of these 
 complex problems. The Church needs a 
 body of men and women who mil dare to be 
 fools, unpractical, dreamers, in following 
 the Light and who will act up to their ideais. 
 
 VII. 
 Another outstanding feature of to-day, 
 to which the Society of Friends ought to 
 
 *W. C. Braithwaite's "Beginnings of Quakerism," p. xliii. 
 95 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 have a special relation, is that which is 
 spoken of as the Women's Movement. 
 This undoubtedly expresses much more 
 than a political or social aspiration. It 
 corresponds in some measure to the demo- 
 cratic movement and indicates the stirring 
 of spiritual aspirations. Its symptoms are 
 seen not only in the movement for women's 
 suffrage, and not only in Western countries. 
 A recent book, published by the wife of 
 one of the ruling chiefs of India, is symp- 
 tomatic of great changes that are taking 
 place all over the East. The book is a 
 statement of the positions which are open 
 to women in Western coxmtries, and an 
 urgent plea for the opening of these doors 
 to the women of the East also. Although 
 lacking in the realization of the difficulty 
 of suddenly making so great a change in 
 India, the book is well worthy of notice 
 as indicating the stirrings of a new life 
 among Indian women. Hardly any con- 
 trast could be imagined greater than their 
 condition in the past and that which is 
 sketched out for them in the future by the 
 authoress of this book. Probably many 
 
 96 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 will have noticed that an incident in the 
 deliberations of the Provisional National 
 Convention of China at Nanking was the 
 presentation of a petition from the women 
 of that country for the granting of women's 
 suffrage. 
 
 I was recently made vividly aware of the 
 vast difference between the practice of 
 Friends and that of other Christian denom- 
 inations by the consideration of a report 
 on the relations between men and women in 
 the mission field, which was presented 
 to a representative Missionary Conference 
 in Great Britain last summer. The report 
 urged that an equal share in the manage- 
 ment of mission affairs should be given to 
 women, and brought forward a strong 
 array of reasons in favor thereof. It was 
 referred to by a member of one of the 
 largest missionary societies as "a momen- 
 tous report." A lady Friend described it 
 as "daring incursions into the obvious." 
 The fact is that we as Friends possess the 
 very thing which some other Churches are 
 beginning to realize they need. A brilliant 
 writer and prominent Free Church leader 
 
 97 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 in Great Britain has recently asked the 
 question why, in these days of the higher 
 education of women, should the miaistry 
 be a monopoly of the men; and we Friends 
 echo, with the thought of Elizabeth Fry 
 and Hannah Chapman Backhouse and many 
 another in our minds, "Why, indeed!" 
 To the spiritual insight and courage of our 
 forefathers we owe it, that in the Society 
 of Friends we can say "There is neither 
 male nor female." I wonder if we suffi- 
 ciently realize how great an heritage this 
 is — how sacred a trust; and if we take 
 sufficient pains to bring our message in 
 this respect to the notice of others. If 
 the women's movement, with all its great 
 possibiUties, is to be a contribution, as 
 it ought to be, to the building up of the 
 Kingdom of God, the Churches need to 
 adopt a sympathetic attitude towards it, 
 and to express in their own organizations 
 their readiness to adapt themselves to meet 
 its ideals. If they are to do this with 
 confidence, what greater stimulus could 
 they have than the knowledge, which few 
 outside our borders possess, I fear, of the 
 
 98 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 uniform experience of our Society through- 
 out its history? The Church needs to 
 realize with greater vividness how much the 
 consecrated womanhood in her midst can 
 contribute to her life, and to give women the 
 fuUest opportunity to make that contribution. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 If the women's movement expresses, 
 as it vmdoubtedly does, a spiritual aspira- 
 tion, I think the same may be said with 
 perhaps equal force of the labor movements 
 in Western countries. That many working- 
 men have been practically unable to develop 
 the higher side of their nature, on accoimt 
 of the conditions of labor, is generally 
 admitted. The movement for higher wages 
 and better conditions of work is, after aU, 
 something more than the expression of a 
 grievance against capital. There is the 
 deep yearning for a fuller life. This great 
 aspiration the Churches should recognize 
 and seek to meet. Speaking for my own 
 country, I can say that one of the great 
 obstacles with which the Churches are 
 confronted in dealing with the working- 
 
 99 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 men is the suspicion of the mercenary 
 spirit. To the workingman, the clergyman 
 is paid to do a certain job and must justify 
 his existence. Of course this is a prejudice 
 which is soon removed when the man gets 
 into such personal relations with the min- 
 ister as to feel the heartbeat of a true friend- 
 ship, but often these personal relationships 
 are hindered through the prejudice referred 
 to. Do not these facts suggest that there 
 is a need for one section of the Church 
 which has not this disability and whose 
 ministers are all laymen? 
 
 And this brings me to the further thought 
 of the need for this very testimony on the 
 mission field to-day. The other day in 
 India a missionary of another Society said 
 to me, "Whatever you Friends do, do not 
 give up your principles in regard to a free 
 ministry," and he proceeded to quote to 
 me a case of some well-to-do young men 
 whose mother was an earnest Christian 
 woman. She, it appeared, had been urged 
 to take up regular Christian work, and 
 they had constantly stood in the way. 
 When pressed as to the reason for such 
 100 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 action, they informed the missionary that 
 they could not allow their mother to take 
 up Christian work because the neighbors 
 would at once say that they could not afford 
 to keep her; so intimately were the ideas 
 of Christian work and the payment of a 
 salary connected in the minds of the 
 Indians. How often do we hear the gibe 
 flvmg at Christian Missions that their 
 converts are all "rice Christians!" The 
 element of truth in the slander of course 
 is this — that so many of the best are called 
 to direct religious work for which they 
 receive regular payment. At a conference 
 of leading Christians held recently, a strong 
 representation was made to the foreigners 
 present, and through them to the home 
 boards, to the effect that missionaries 
 should lay greater emphasis on the calling 
 of Christians into business life and cease 
 to so state the problem of Christian service 
 as to lead to the inevitable conclusion that 
 the only place for the most consecrated 
 Christians was the ministry. The great 
 need, in fact, is that there should be a vast 
 increase of voluntary workers; that the 
 
 101 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 idea of "every Christian a missionary" 
 should permeate the whole Chm-ch, both 
 at home and abroad. We have seen 
 recently that wonderful results can flow 
 when this ideal dominates the Church, as 
 in the history of the last ten years in 
 Korea. 
 
 Now Friends have a position of peculiar 
 strength in this matter and one which in 
 England has been nobly used, especially 
 through the Adult School movement. 
 
 I am not here to say that the practice 
 of Friends needs no modification, in view 
 of the special circumstances either of mis- 
 sionary work abroad or of the conditions 
 of a new country like this; but I do most 
 emphatically believe that Friends have here 
 a great testimony and one which is needed 
 by the whole Christian Church. 
 
 I am not maintaining that there is no 
 place for the supported minister. You in 
 America have found for him a larger place, 
 in the special conditions of your life, than 
 we have among Friends in England; but, 
 even here, I am persuaded that you recog- 
 nize to the full the primary thought that a 
 102 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 man is not paid for his services or in pro- 
 portion thereto, but that he is simply 
 maintained in order that he may fulfil 
 the ministry which has been entrusted 
 to him. 
 
 Is there not also great value in the insist- 
 ence upon the fact that the ministry of 
 the Church is not dependent upon the lay- 
 ing on of hands, or any other outward 
 ceremony? I should like to quote again 
 from the West China document to which 
 I have already referred, under the heading 
 of "Ministry." 
 
 " 1. The supreme and only indispensable 
 quaUfication for the Christian ministry is 
 the Divine call, habitually responded to. 
 Any man or woman so used of God is there- 
 by constituted a Christian minister. 
 
 "2. The part of the Church is to recog- 
 nize such ministers." 
 
 It is not only the mere fact of his salary 
 which makes the workingman shun the 
 parson. It is the thought of a class set 
 apart, different from the ordinary man in 
 the street. Are we making full use of the 
 advantage we possess through having our 
 
 103 
 
Message and Mission of Qu akerism 
 
 business men engaged in the active ministry 
 of the Chin-ch? If we have broken down 
 the barrier between lay and cleric, have 
 we not at the same time done something to 
 remove the barrier between labor and the 
 Church? 
 
 The Church, then, needs to he reminded 
 perpetually that the ministry is not the work 
 of a class hut of all, and that the service of 
 Christ is not a profession hut a free-vnll 
 offering. 
 
 IX. 
 
 There is one other direction in which my 
 own experience leads me to believe that 
 Friends have a position of peculiar advan- 
 tage and responsibility, and I cannot close 
 this address without making some reference 
 thereto. We are all weU aware of the great 
 difficulties which have been faced and are 
 stiU being faced by the Church of Christ 
 to-day through the advent of the historical 
 criticism of the Bible. On the one hand 
 there are those who believe that the Bible 
 should be treated exactly as any other 
 book; that the various documents which 
 104 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 have been embodied in it should be critically 
 examined and that every statement should 
 be checked and challenged. This treat- 
 ment of the Bible has led to results which 
 many regard as serious, if not disastrous. 
 So much is this the case that many of the 
 most earnest followers of Christ beUeve 
 on the other hand that the whole movement, 
 generally spoken of as the "higher criti- 
 cism," is altogether evil and to be resisted 
 with the whole strength of the Church. 
 This school, with which are associated 
 some of the most saintly and earnest 
 Christian workers, beheves that we should 
 maintain the entire literal inspiration of 
 the whole of Holy Scripture. From the 
 results which they have seen in the case 
 of many who have been grievously upset, 
 and whose faith seems to have been ship- 
 wrecked through following the higher critics, 
 they have come to the conclusion that it is 
 wrong to allow any question to be asked 
 which might lead to the shaking of our 
 faith in the literal accuracy of the whole 
 book. To some it seems as though these 
 two schools of thought could not possibly 
 
 105 
 
Message an d Mission of Quakerism 
 
 be reconciled. They regard their opponents 
 as hopelessly narrow-minded and bigoted 
 or as giving away the very essence of Chris- 
 tian faith. But can the Christian Church 
 afford to lose either section? It is true 
 there may be irreconcilable extremists on 
 both sides; but even this I should be sorry 
 to admit. Of course, there are some who 
 have entered upon the critical study of 
 the Bible from a sceptical standpoint: 
 I am not referring to these. But there are 
 many who are truly devout scholars and 
 who are intensely loyal to our Lord Jesus 
 Christ; and there are many younger men 
 and women who long to be able to maintain 
 the faith delivered to their fathers, but who 
 feel that, in doing so, they dare not be untrue 
 to their own God-given reason, and who 
 are therefore compelled to face the questions 
 which some would counsel them to leave 
 alone. The cure for such is not to tell 
 them that an unorthodox view with regard 
 to the authority of a certain book puts them 
 outside the Kingdom of God : unfortunately 
 there are not a few whose counsels to the 
 young would seem to point in this direc- 
 
 106 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 tion. Can we not find a via media which 
 will help us to work together in love in 
 spite of the fact that we differ so greatly 
 even on so important a question? If we 
 cannot so work together I believe there 
 must be weakness in om- testimony to Christ. 
 I think that the Society of Friends is 
 in a position of imique strength in regard 
 to this diflScult problem. The early Friends 
 realized — as their contemporaries did not 
 — that the Holy Scriptures contained the 
 word of God; but that it was not right to 
 speak of them as being the word of God. 
 They realized the danger, to which the 
 Reformers were many of them blind, of 
 a literalism in the interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture which would bind men as did the tra- 
 dition of the Elders in the time of Christ. 
 Nevertheless, they held with tremendous 
 tenacity the view that the Scriptures were 
 indeed inspired of God, and this none the 
 less because the same Spirit who first 
 inspired men of old to write was present 
 and necessary to help the men of to-day in 
 the interpretation of those writings This 
 view is thus expressed by Samuel Fisher: 
 
 107 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 "And because we do not, with the iiiisty 
 ministers of the mere letter, own the bare 
 text of Scripture entire in every tittle, but 
 say it hath suffered much loss of more 
 than vowels, single letters and single lines 
 also, yea, even of whole epistles and prophe- 
 cies of inspired men, the copies of which 
 are not by the clergy canonized nor by 
 the Bible sellers bound up, and especially 
 because we own not the said alterable 
 and much altered outward text, but the 
 holy truth and inward light and spirit 
 to be the Word of God, which is living 
 [and] the true touchstone, therefore they 
 cry out against us. Yet the Scriptiires 
 are owned by us in their due place and 
 the letter is acknowledged by us full as 
 much as it is by itself, to have been written 
 by men moved of God's Spirit."* 
 
 This, it seems to me, is the platform upon 
 which all reverent scholars and devout 
 lovers of the Bible can meet. The Society 
 of Friends, which has ever stood for toler- 
 ance, is not the Body to hurl anathemas at 
 those who are finding light for their path 
 
 'Quoted in "Beginnings of Quakerism," p. 289. 
 108 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 in ways that to some of us may seem dark 
 and tortuous. Rather, is it not the Body 
 which, in the true spirit of its founders, 
 may bring us together with a tendering of 
 spirit, as we own allegiance to one common 
 Lord and as we recognize together the far 
 greater dangers that confront the Church 
 in the sin and unbeUef of the world in which 
 we live. 
 
 The Church needs to recognize that even 
 large divergence of view in reference to the 
 Bible is consistent with loyalty to Christ, 
 and that we must all stand together to face 
 the great tasks that demand her undivided 
 attention. 
 
 X. 
 
 In conclusion, let me say a few words 
 upon the meaning of all this to ourselves. 
 Much that I have said to you wiU be 
 famUiar, and perhaps even of the nature of 
 platitudes to many of you; but it is worth 
 saying if it does no more than bring us aU 
 to the same point for facing the tasks that 
 are before us to-day. We come to this 
 point recognizing that, whether at home 
 
 109 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 or abroad, the Society of Friends is called 
 to play a part, to make a contribution of 
 permanent worth to the Church of Christ. 
 I have touched upon some of the things 
 that are included in the heritage of the past. 
 In our Books of Discipline, in the memoirs 
 of ancient Friends, in the lives of our own 
 pM-ents and grandparents we have abimd- 
 ant proof of our goodly spiritual inherit- 
 ance; and the amazing fact that confronts 
 us to-day is surely this — that, having so 
 much, we are giving so little. The really 
 pressing question is not, "What is our 
 contribution?" but, "How are we to make 
 it?" What a glorious heritage the Jews 
 possessed when our Lord was on earth, 
 and yet how many of them were content 
 to say "We have Abraham to our father!" 
 We need, then, first a new conviction — a 
 conviction that what God has given to 
 us is not only beautiful, uplifting and 
 inspiring, but that it is true. Whence 
 can this conviction come? It can come to 
 us only from God Himself. The records 
 of the past, however luminous, will not 
 enlighten us without His Spirit. We need 
 
 110 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 to be brought into His presence, that we 
 may see Him, as did our fathers, and have 
 that note of conviction in all that we say 
 and do that shall compel men to believe 
 that what we say is true. 
 
 And, secondly, we need a new consecra- 
 tion. To us there may be revealed "the 
 vision beautiful"; but only when we have 
 said with the whole heart, "Here am I, 
 send me," can we be trusted to bring that 
 vision into the lives of others. If we are 
 mere imitators of others, the ideal may 
 seem beautiful, but it is not compelling 
 enough for us to take up the cross and go 
 all lengths in the service of the Master. 
 When we draw our inspiration from Him 
 direct, there comes into our lives that 
 intensely personal motive which the Apostle 
 described in the words "The love of Christ 
 constraineth us." In this spirit of conse- 
 cration to Him we shall be imited with 
 one another, and, being thus joined together, 
 we shaU be permitted to bring our message 
 home to others as we could in no other way. 
 
 And, thirdly, we need to have a larger 
 sjnmpathy with those to whom we go. 
 
 Ill 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 It is not the passion of bigotry which will 
 enable us to deliver oiir message. Let us 
 remind ourselves again that we are one 
 with all who love the Lord in sincerity and 
 truth. If we expect others to vmderstand 
 us, let us be at least as patient in seeking 
 to understand them. Let us beware of 
 the sectarian spirit. Let us emphasize 
 the fundamentals which we hold in common 
 with others even more than our own 
 distinctive views. The more we have to 
 give, the more vital does it become that 
 we should "walk humbly with our God." 
 The spiritual pride which writes off the 
 achievements of our ancestors on the credit 
 side of our own balance sheet is perhaps 
 one of the chief hindrances to our pajdng 
 the debt which we owe to the Church. 
 
 And, fourthly, we need a corporate 
 sense of our mission and message. If 
 only each of us in this great representative 
 gathering might be given afresh the child- 
 like spirit, and if all together we might 
 hear once more the caU of the Master ring 
 out clear and strong to our Society, might 
 not even the early triumphs of Quakerism. 
 
 112 
 
The Contribution of Friends 
 
 be surpassed? A new age needs indeed a 
 new spirit. We are not called to give just 
 the same thing as was given by our spiritual 
 forefathers; but we are called each and all 
 to give our best, without stiat, without 
 counting the cost, and, unless we do, we 
 cannot be true to that which God has 
 given us. 
 
 Out of the dedicated spirit of the body 
 as a whole there will be born a race of 
 apostles. To each is given his ministry— 
 "To some apostles." We must have such 
 if our message is to ring forth with its 
 ancient power and in new and living tones. 
 It should be the peculiar task of the Society 
 of Friends to raise up apostles. We need 
 to travail in pain till they be born, and the 
 pain is to be the long sorrow of a world's 
 need which God has given us the ability 
 to meet, and which for Christ's sake we will 
 make our own. 
 
 When I think of these great needs aroimd 
 me, I can sometimes feel that the illusion 
 lifts and "the truth Ues bare." In the 
 Church and beyond its borders I seem 
 to hear the yearning cry of those who aspire 
 113 
 
Message and Mission of Quakerism 
 
 and whose aspirations are checked and 
 thwarted: the bitter murmurings of those 
 who have lost their confidence in organized 
 Christianity and have been soured and 
 alienated where they should have found 
 sympathy and help: the warring and dis- 
 cordant notes of those who quarrel and 
 misunderstand each other where they should 
 unite firmly to represent Christ to the world: 
 the perplexed questionings of those who 
 seek to steer a straight course through the 
 maze of modern life, and who have no cer- 
 tain guide : the weary sigh of those for whom 
 life is too rapid and who have no time to 
 turn inward and find their peace in Christ: 
 the almost stifled sob of the souls that are 
 cramped by the pressure of a materialistic 
 view of life, or by the crushing weight of 
 a world that leaves out God. 
 
 The call comes from far and near for 
 sjrmpathy, deliverance, direction, peace and 
 courage. Through it all may we not catch 
 the tones of One whose heart still beats 
 with the heart of his weakest child, saying 
 
 "My voice is crying in their cry, 
 Help ye the dying lest ye die"? 
 
 114 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 J. S. - RowNTREB : '^Friends — Their Faith and 
 
 Practice." 
 T. E. Hakvet: "Rise of the Quakers." 
 Elizabeth B. Emmott : "Story of Quakerism." 
 RuFus M. Jones : "A Dynamic Faith." 
 "Social Law in the Spiritiial World." 
 "Quakerism a Religion of Life." (Swarthmore 
 Lecture.) 
 W. C. Bbaithwaitb : "Spiritual Guidance in Quaker 
 Experience." (Swarthmore Lecture.) 
 "Beginnings of Quakerism." 
 Allen C. Thomas : History of Friends in America. 
 
 115