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 Quakerism, pas and present: beini 
 
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QUAKERISM, 
 
 PAST AND PEESENT : 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES OF ITS DECLINE 
 IN GEEAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 
 
 By 
 
 JOHN STEPHENSON EOWNTEEE. 
 
 " If it be true that spiritual religion too dimly shines toithin (mr borders ; if it he 
 true thatf in many places, the strength of the bearers <tf burdens is decayed ; it becomes 
 a Christian Church not only to acknowledge cmd deplore the facts, but seriously and 
 in the fear of the Lord to endeavour to ascertain the cause^ and to seek for ability to 
 apply the remedy." 
 
 YOBK QUABTEHLT HeeTIHO OF FbIEHDS, 1855, 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
 
 1859. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pbeface ... ... ... V 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ClEOUMSTANOES CONNECTED WITH THE RiSE OP FeIENDS. 
 
 Introductory Remarks — John Wycliffe — ^Progress of religious 
 opinion between 1324 and 1624, the year of George Fox's 
 birth — Henry Vin. — Edward VI. — Rapid changes in the 
 national religion — ^Rise of Puritanism — General decay 
 of piety — Later Puritans — Their polemics and Judaizing 
 theology — Companies of spiritual worshippers formed in 
 different places — George Fox 1 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 OeIGINAL VlDWS OF THE FOTJNDEKS OF QuAKEEISM 
 CONNECTED WITH ITS DeOLINI!. 
 
 George Fox's religious exercises — He learns the spiritual 
 character of the Gospel dispensation — Publishes his 
 views and makes conrerts — The central idea of Quaker- 
 ism, and its twofold effect on the Society of Friends — 
 Positive effects — ^Religious liberty — Rejection of a human 
 priesthood — Tithes — Worship — Disuse of all " forms " by 
 the Friends — ^Practical working of their mode of wor- 
 ship — ^Error of supposing this mode of worship the only 
 right one — Ministry — Gift of religious teaching — Sym- 
 bolic rites 13 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 Oeiginai. Views op the Foundees of Quakeeism 
 CONNECTED WITH ITS DECLINE — Continued. 
 Indirect effects of distorted doctrinal views — Disparagement 
 of the Reason — ^Fine Arts — Scriptures — ^Discipline . . 44 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. PAGE 
 
 Numerical strength of the Society of Friends in 1680— Its 
 proportion to the general population — Emigration — 
 Number of Friends in 1800, 1847, and 1856 ... 68 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Second Epoch op Qtjakekism. 
 Death of George Fox — Tendencies of Quakerism at that 
 period — Decline of the Society between 1690 to 1760 — 
 Diminished effusion of the Holy Spirit — Commercial 
 prosperity of the Friends — Education defective in the 
 Society, and the reason for its being so — Ackworth 
 School founded in 1779, with important results — Dimi- 
 nished number of Ministers — "Acknowledging Minis- 
 ters" — Birthright membership 89 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Thikd Epoch op Quakeeism— Causes op Decline 
 pkincipallt inteoduced aptee 1760. 
 The revival of the Discipline in 1760 — Its defective cha- 
 racter — The Friends increasingly isolate themselves — 
 Quietism — Irish secessions — Hicksites — Philanthropy 
 — Dress and language 117 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 MoDEEN Causes op the Society's Decline — Continued. 
 Marriage regulations of the Society of Friends — George 
 Fox's doctrine as to marriage — ^He legislates for the 
 Society — "Mixed marriages" — Disownmeut becomes the 
 stated penalty for marriage "contrary to rule" — Number 
 of persons so disowned in the nineteenth century — In&e- 
 quency of marriage amongst the Friends .... 144 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SUMMAET OP PEECBDING AeGUMENT ... .159 
 
PEEFACE, 
 
 A FEW sentences only are needful to explain the 
 origin of the accompanying Essay. In the month of 
 March, 1858, there appeared in the public prints 
 the following announcement : — 
 
 SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.— PRIZE ESSAY. 
 
 A GENTLEMAN who laments that, notwithstanding the 
 population of the United Kingdom has more than doubled itself 
 in the last fifty years, the Sodety of Friends is less in number 
 than at the beginning of the century ; and who believes that 
 the Society at one time bore a powerful witness to t^ie world 
 concerning some of the errors to which it is most prone, and 
 some of the truths which are the most necessary to it ; and that 
 this witness has been gradually becoming more and more feeble, 
 is anxious to obtain light respecting the causes of this change. 
 He offers a PRIZE of ONE HUNDRED GUINEAS for the 
 best ESSAY that shall be written on the subject, and a 
 PRIZE of FIFTY GUINEAS for the one next in merit. He 
 has asked three gentlemen, not members of the Society of 
 Friends, to pronounce judgment on the Essays which shall be 
 sent to them. They have all some acquaintance with the his- 
 tory of the Society, and some interest in its existing members ; 
 and as they are likely to regard the subject from different 
 points of view, he trusts that their decision will be impartial ; 
 that they will not expect to find their own opinions represented 
 in the Essays ; and that they will choose the one which exhibits 
 most thought and Christiaii earnestness, whether it is favour- 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 able or junfavonrable to the Society, whether it refers the 
 diminution of its influence to degeneracy, to something wrong 
 in the original constitution of the body, to the rules which it 
 has adopted for its government, or to any extraneous cause. 
 
 Kev. F. D. MAUKICE, Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn; Pro- 
 fessor J. P. NICHOL, Glasgow; and Rev. E. S. PKYCE, 
 Gravesend, have agreed to act as Adjudicators. 
 
 The number and ability of the Essays vyhich this 
 announcement elicited, while it afforded gratifying 
 testimony to the interest which the subject has ex- 
 cited, added greatly tp the labour and responsibility 
 of the adjudicators. . The illness of Professor Nichol, 
 which has since terminated in his lamented death, 
 was one of the " unforeseen hindrances" which occa- 
 sioned the delay of the adjudicators' decision. It was 
 given in August, 1859, in the following terms : — 
 
 SOCIETY OP FKEENDS.— PRIZE ESSAYS. 
 
 The adjudicators of the Prizes for the best Essays on the 
 Causes of the Decline in the Society of Friends regret that 
 they have been prevented from arriving at an earlier decision 
 by unforeseen hindrances, by the large number and extent of 
 the Essays submitted to them, and by their exceeding desire to 
 deal justly. The terms of the original proposal do not permit 
 the adjudicators to specify more than the two Essays which 
 appear to them to have the superior claims ; but they feel it 
 right to bear testimony to the great ability displayed by many 
 of the other writers, and to record their conviction, that the 
 publication of what they have written, by the individual 
 authors, would, in many cases, be advisable, and for the public 
 advantage. In performing the painful duty of setting aside 
 so many estimable and elaborate productions, the adjudicators 
 have necessarily been influenced by various classes of con- 
 siderations : they have been deterred, in some cases, by the 
 
PREFACE; vii 
 
 presence of irrelevant disquisitions, and they have been espe- 
 cially solicitous that the spirit manifested hy the successful can- 
 didates he such as seemed most in accordance with the object for 
 ■which the prizes were offered, as plainly set forth in the general 
 advertisement. It has, after careful consideration, been deter- 
 inined that an Essay, bearing a motto from a report of the 
 York Quarterly Meeting of the year 1855, should receive the 
 first prize ; and one bearing the motto verbum, vita, lux, the 
 second prize. A degree of hesitation having been expressed 
 by the adjudicators as to the relative place which ought to be 
 assigned to the two successful essays, the donor of the prizes 
 has generously offered to make the second, prize equal to the 
 first. The writers of these Essays evidently belong to different 
 schools, and contemplate the subject from entirely different 
 points of view. No one of the adjudicators wishes to be held 
 responsible for the sentiments of either writer. But they are 
 unanimous in hoping that, in choosing both, they are doing their 
 best to promote the objects of the giver of the prizes, and to 
 fulfil their trust. 
 
 J. P. ISTlCHOL. 
 
 F. D. Maueice. 
 E. S. Pktce. 
 
 The Essay to which the first prize was adjudged 
 is printed in the present volume. 
 
 It may be convenient to state briefly at the outset 
 the hne of argument that has been pursued in the 
 following pages. The reader will find his attention 
 first directed to the historical and social features of 
 the epoch in which the Society of Friends arose, these 
 having powerfully influenced the conduct of its found- 
 ers. The author next examines the doctrines and 
 practices of the " early Friends," with especial refer- 
 
VlU PBEFACE. 
 
 ence to such of them as appear to have occasioned 
 or accelerated the Society's decline. He then en- 
 deavours to ascertain the numbers of the Friends at 
 different periods of their history, and determine the 
 extent of their recent diminution. The succeeding 
 chapter (the fifth) is occupied with the second epoch 
 of the Society's history, extending from the death 
 of George Fox, in 1690, to the revival of the dis- 
 cipline in 1760. The sixth and seventh chapters 
 examine the causes of decline which have most 
 prominently manifested themselves within the last 
 hundred years; and the essay is concluded by a 
 summary of the previous argument, and a resumd 
 of the whole case presented in a condensed form. 
 
QUAKERISM: 
 
 PAST AND PKESENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CIRCUMSTA^^CES CONJSnECTED WITH THE EISE OF 
 THE FRIENDS. 
 
 Introductory remarks — John Wycliffe — Progress of religious opi- 
 nion between 1324 and 1624, the year of George Fox's birth — 
 Henry VIH. — Edward VI. — ^Bapid changes in the national 
 religion — ^Eise of Puritanism — General decay of piety — ^Later 
 Puritans : their polemics and Judaizing theology — Companies 
 of spiritual worshippers formed in different places — George Fox. 
 
 " It was an age of deep earnestness. Frivolous and luxurious men 
 had for a while retreated to make way for impassioned and high- 
 wrought spirits ; for the interpreters at once of the ancient revela- 
 tions, and of the present judgments of Heaven ; for the monitors of an 
 ungodly world, and for the comforters of those who bent beneath the 
 weight of national and domestic calamities." — Sir James Stephen. 
 
 The Society of Friends dates its origin from the 
 year 1647. Its founder, George Fox, was then 
 twenty-three years of age. If a title so honourable 
 as that of " the last of the Reformers " be accorded 
 
2 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 to him (and we are prepared to grant It), we may 
 stay to note that his birth, in 1624, was just three 
 hundred years after that of John Wycliffe, " the 
 Morning Star of the Reformation." These three 
 centuries were among the most eventful in the his- 
 tory of man ; the human intellect had taken gigantic 
 strides, the invention of ' printing had widely ex- 
 tended the bounds of knowledge, new continents had 
 been discovered, commerce was opening for itself 
 fresh channels in all parts of the world, the German 
 Reformation had shaken the Papacy to its centre, 
 and numerous European States had renounced their 
 dependence on the Roman pontiff. England was 
 one of these States, and perhaps nowhere else (Scot- 
 land excepted) can it be said that the doctrines of 
 Protestantism were more fully accepted or more 
 highly prized. Yet the opinion of John Wycliffe, 
 " that the great heresy of Rome was to believe in the 
 power of man in the work of regeneration,"* was but 
 imperfectly accepted in the middle of the seventeenth 
 century. " The Reformation," says the London Yearly 
 Meeting of Friends in 1857, had but " partially dis- 
 pelled the idea, so foreign to primitive Christianity 
 (that had grown up in the preceding, long and dark 
 night of apostacy), of the possibility of performing the 
 
 * Quoted by D'AuWgng, Hist, of Reformation, vol. v. p. 137. 
 
THE ENGLISH EErORMATlON. 3 
 
 service of God by proxy."* The extent to wLich 
 the civil power had been connected with religions 
 movements in England may principally have occa- 
 sioned this result. Questions of state policy had 
 prevented the full development of the Reformation, 
 and had arrested its progress at a point short of what 
 many of its champions desired. 
 
 It does not, however, appear that any of the early 
 Reformers carried their Protestantism so far as was 
 afterwards done by George Fox, in advocating the 
 entire abolition of a human priesthood in the Church 
 of Christ, and the recognition of the Lord Jesus as 
 its one holy Head and great High Priest. The idea of 
 the continued presence of the Saviour with His fol- 
 lowers had been so obscured by the Romish apostasy, 
 that it was but slowly men awoke to the conscious- 
 ness of its reality, and. hence throughout the entire 
 period from 1500 to 1650 religion was too often 
 treated as a sort of State engine — painfiiUy indi- 
 cating the forgetfulness of the apostolic truth, that 
 " the kingdom of heaven is not meat and drink ; 
 but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost." t 
 
 Prepared by the diffusion of Wycliffe's translation 
 
 * Printed Minutes of London Yearly Meeting, 1857, p. 12. 
 t Bomans zir. 17. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 QTJAKEEISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 of the Bible, as well as by that political jealousy of 
 Rome which had always existed in England, the 
 nation readUy assented to Henry VIII. 's renuncia- 
 tion of Papal supremacy (when the selfish ends of 
 that monarch prompted the step). But this was a 
 very small part of the work of the Reformation. It 
 hardly advanced beyond the stage of infancy in the 
 reign of Henry VIII. The inalienable right of pri- 
 vate judgment in the things of God was not yet 
 openly asserted, and public opinion scarcely qnes- 
 Aioned the authority of the King to punish, even with 
 death, men whose consciences would not keep pace 
 with Court decrees and Apts of Parliament — ^whether 
 it were, as in the cases of Bishop Fisher and Sir 
 Thomas More, out of deference to Papal rights ; or 
 in those of the pious martyrs. Frith and Bilney, 
 who desired a thorough reformation of the National 
 Church in accordance with scriptural principles. 
 
 The personal piety of Edward VI., and of many 
 of the great men who surroimded his throne, was 
 a happy circumstance for England, and nnder their 
 reforming zeal the national religion substantially 
 assumed its present form ; but the very rapidity 
 and extent of the changes that were made in the 
 six eventful years of his short reign — " changes," 
 says Marsden, " effected by Parliament, and pub- 
 
THE ENGLISH REPOEMATION. 5 
 
 lished under their authority by letters patent from 
 the King"* — had a bewildering effect on the nation; 
 and from the opposition these changes evoked, as 
 well as from the general return to Popery on the 
 accession of Mary, we conclude they went quite as 
 far as the nation was then prepared for. Whilst 
 it would be a grave mistake to ignore the existence 
 of a considerable body of persons in England, pre- 
 pared at all costs to maintain their allegiance to 
 God amidst the changes of the ruling powers (and 
 not a few evidenced the reality of their faith in 
 banishment, in prison, and at the stake), the student 
 of English history cannot but be struck with the 
 facility with which the masses of the people accom- 
 modated their religious professions to the views of 
 their rulers, " During the twelve or thirteen years 
 which followed the death of Henry VIII.," says Lord 
 Macaulay, " the religion of the State was thrice 
 changed. Protestantism was established by Edward, 
 the Catholic Church was restored by Mary, Pro- 
 testantism was again established by Elizabeth. The 
 faith of the nation seemed to depend on the personal 
 inclinations of the sovereign." f It is a remarkable 
 fact, and one that displays the degradation induced by 
 
 ' Marsdea's Christian Sects, vol. i. p. 227. 
 
 t Review of Burleigh and his Times, Essays, vol. i. p. 226. 
 
6 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 the long bondage of Rome, that, " out of ten thousand 
 benefices^ not quite three huadred incumbents, who 
 had acknowledged the Romish supremacy under Mary, 
 declined to accept that of Elizabeth in its stead." * 
 
 Quakerism was so' intimately connected with Puri- 
 tanism, that the rise of the " early Puritans" in the 
 reign of Edward VI., out of the " vestiarian con- 
 troversy " of Bishop Hooper, must not be passed by 
 without an allusion. They constituted for many 
 years an important party in the Church of England, 
 and whilst advocating further reformation in the cere- 
 monials of the established worship, they did not — 
 like some of their successors — mistake the externals 
 or accompaniments of rehgion for the thing itself; 
 and they zealously sought to promote the cause of 
 Christ, and to extend virtue and piety throughout 
 the nation. No doctrinal difference of importance 
 existed between them and the other party in the 
 Church tin the close of Elizabeth's reign, when the 
 scriptural requirements for Sabbath observance were 
 differently interpreted; and a rigid conception of 
 their meaning constituted the first doctrinal pecu- 
 liarity of Puritanism. 
 
 As assisting us to realize the outside idea of reli- 
 gion prevailing at this period, the correspondence 
 * Marsden's Marly Puritans, p. 100. 
 
THE PURITANS. 7 
 
 between the imperious Queeai and the devoted Arch- 
 bishop Grindal on the " prophesy ings" repays perusal. 
 In one of her letters, Elizabeth expresses her prefer- 
 ence for having but few " preaching clergy," and re- 
 fuses to sanctioTi or permit these popular gatherings 
 for religious instruction. Grindal pleads earnestly 
 for their maintenance, and was disgraced for his 
 firmness ; yet how limited were even his views of 
 the "Gospel liberty of prophesying" is proved by 
 his r^ulation, that " No man may spealt unless 
 he be first allowed by the Bishop, with this proviso, 
 that no layman he suffered to speak at any time^'' * As 
 the great men who had conducted the Reformation 
 of the English Church under Edward VI. passed 
 to their rewards in heaven, and their places were 
 filled in the latter years of the Elizabethan period 
 by men of less zeal and piety, rehgion and morality 
 declined in England; this declension becoming in- 
 creasingly apparent in the reigns of the first Stuarts. 
 True it is that the Puritan party upheld a standard 
 of strict morality, and had assumed that austerity 
 of manners which we are accustomed to associate 
 with their memory; but they were not sufficiently 
 numerous to withstand the encouragement given by 
 James I. to vice and profligacy, through the pmb- 
 » Memains of Archbishop Grindal, p. 385. Parker Society 
 
8 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 lication of the Book of Sports, and by the per- 
 nicious example of his Court. This double aspect 
 of society — the licentious and the puritanic — during 
 the first forty years of the seventeenth century, must 
 be kept steadily in view when considering the rise of 
 Quakerism; for it was a protest against both extremes, 
 and the reverse action of each of them is distinctly 
 visible in the views and practices of the Friends in 
 the present day. 
 
 Without more than a passing allusion to the oft- 
 told story, how Charles I. attempted to govern de- 
 spotically ; how he was assisted by the High Church 
 party under Archbishop Laud, with its frightful 
 engine of oppression the Court of Star Chamber; 
 how these enormities and the Romanizing tenden- 
 cies of the Court and clergy augmented the num- 
 bers of the Puritans, restiscitated their hatred of 
 prelacy, and stimulated their fanaticism, so intensi- 
 fying the political struggles that ended in civil war 
 and the overthrow of the monarchy, — ^we pass on 
 to invite particular attention to the polemical con- 
 troversies of the jtimes ; they were incessant, and 
 embraced a wide theological area. The greatest 
 mysteries of our faith — free-will, predestination, 
 election, and reprobation — were under constant dis- 
 cussion in England fi:om 1600 to 1660; as also in 
 
POLEMICAL CONTROVERSIES. 9 
 
 other parts of Europe, particularly Holland, where 
 the Synod of Dordt was convened in 1618, in an 
 endeavour to determine the points in dispute. The 
 hard, decided, and vehement manner in which the 
 disputants urged their views on points which more 
 than any other demand diiSdence and reverence, is 
 specially observable. When the occasions of differ- 
 ence are principally external — as to the scriptural 
 claims of presbyterian or episcopal church govern- 
 ment, or the position of the commimion-table in the 
 churches, or the vestments worn by the clergy- 
 man, &c. — the same tone of thought and feeling is 
 visible; there is great attention to the externals of 
 religion, but a marked declension in real piety (speak- 
 ing collectively), between the theologians of the Re- 
 formation and those of the epoch under review. 
 Marsden says, " There is less of the earnestness and 
 of the composure of men who are contending for 
 vital truths of eternal moment" (than in the early 
 Reformers). " A fierce contest there is, with its 
 noise and clamour ; but the contest seems more 
 for victory than for truth Their lite- 
 rature is heartless, and their divinity wants life. 
 This is shown by endless conceits in the one, by 
 affectation and litigiousness in the other, and in 
 both by a careful avoidance of what is great and 
 
10 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 really important, or an incapacity of comprehend- 
 ing it."* When the civil war loosened the whole 
 framework of English society, these polemical dis- 
 cussions increased both in frequency and violence; 
 no opinion being too wild to prevent its adoption 
 by fanatical sectaries known under the general term 
 of " malignants." 
 
 Still thCTe was real religion in England — men 
 and women who walked humbly before their God, 
 and ministers who faithfully preached the Gospel ; 
 but much remains to assure us that the show of piety 
 presented by the English nation, when governed by a 
 Puritan Parliament and a Puritan " Protector," was 
 more superficial than deep; and whilst the clergy 
 were laborious and assiduous in the discharge of 
 their pastoral functions, it was too often in " the 
 deadness of the letter," rather than in the life and 
 freshness of evangelical piety. This state of things 
 resulted in great measure from the Judaizimg element 
 existing in the Puritanic theology from its origin, 
 a hundred years previous to the time of the Com- 
 monwealth, and which had been further developed 
 during the civil wars between the King and Par- 
 liament. In writing to Bullinger in 1568, Sandys, 
 Bishop of London, presents an epitome of the 
 * History of the Early Puritans, p. 336. 
 
JDDAIZING THEOLOGY OF PUEITANS. 11 
 
 Puritan tenets under nine heads : the last is " The 
 Judicial Laws of Moses are binding upon Christian 
 princes, and they ought not in the slightest degree 
 to depart from them."* Fully beheving in this 
 doctrine, the Long Parliament, as weU as Crom- 
 well's soldiers, examined the inspired volume pre- 
 cisely as if it had been a statute book, and in too 
 many cases professed to derive from it their authority 
 for acts of violence amd injustice. Closely allied to 
 this subject was the belief so ard^itly controverted 
 by Pennf and Barclay, but almost universally enter- 
 tained by their contemporaries, that the promises of 
 God to his Church, as recorded in Scripture, were 
 the exclusive possession of an outward, objective 
 corporation of men, occupying an analogous posi- 
 tion to that of the Israelites of old; all dissenters 
 from it beings chismatics and heretics, and therefore 
 amenable to punishment by the civil power. 
 
 Quakerism so clearly reflected the features of the 
 age that gave it birth — it was so moulded by sur- 
 rounding circumstances — that we must fail in com- 
 prehending it without first mastering this section erf 
 English history, some of whose salient features we 
 have endeavoured to enumerate. When we remem- ■ 
 
 * Zurich Letters, 1, p. 294. 
 
 t See especially W. Penn'a Address to Protestants. 
 
12 QUAKBEISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 ber the political character of the English Reformation 
 — the long struggle between monarchical and popular 
 authority, partly political and partly religious, termi- 
 nating in the civil wars — and when we contemplate 
 the heartless polemics of the " Later Puritans," we 
 are prepared to understand why little companies of 
 persons drew together in different parts of England 
 and Scotland, wearied with theological disputation, 
 offended alike by the lofty pretensions of the High 
 Church clergy, and by the rigid, unsatisfying, ex- 
 ternal religion of Puritan "professors" — "burdened," 
 as it is expressed in Alexander Jaffrey's memoirs, 
 " with the formality, superstition, and will-worship 
 prevalent around them, waiting upon God in a holy 
 silence and awful humility of soul for ability to draw 
 nigh unto Him in true spiritual worship."* Thus the 
 way was prepared for the rise of a Church that should 
 bear a prominent testimony to the spiritual nature of 
 the kingdom of Christ, whenever, in the ordering of 
 Providence, a man should present himself endowed 
 with sufficient zeal, endurance, and sagacity to in- 
 spire confidence in his authoritative proclamation of 
 the impotency of "outward forms" in giving pure 
 and undefiled religion. Such a man was George Fox. 
 * Barclay's Diary of Alexander Jaffrey, p. 228. 
 
13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OEiaiNAL VIEWS OF THE FOUITOEKS OF QUAKERISM 
 CONNECTED WITH ITS DECLINE. 
 
 George Fox's religious exercises— He learns the spiritual character 
 of the Gospel dispensation — ^Publishes his views, and makes 
 converts — The central idea of Quakerism, and its twofold 
 effect on the Society of Friends — Positive effects — Religious 
 liberty — ^Rejection of a human priesthood — Tithes — Worship — 
 Disuse of all "forms" by the Friends — ^Practical working of 
 their mode of worship — Error of supposing this mode of wor- 
 ship the only right one — Ministry — Gift of religious teaching 
 — Symbolic rites. 
 
 " Human wisdom is in its highest exercise when it is observing the 
 superiority of Divine wisdom, and following its method of procedure." 
 — James M'Cosh, LL.D. 
 
 It was in 1643 (the year that saw the appointment 
 of the parliamentary committees on scandalous minis- 
 ters) that George Fox, then in his nineteenth year, 
 a young man of unhlemished morals, but of little 
 education, who from childhood had lived in " honesty 
 and innocency " (the words are his own), entered on 
 that extraordinary series of spiritual conflicts which 
 attended his path for upwards of three years pre- 
 
14 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 vious to engaging in the work of his life. We have 
 termed his conflicts extraordinary ; and so they must 
 ever appear when examined from a mere psycho- 
 logical point of view; and yet it would hardly 
 seem as if the leaders of spiritual and religious 
 life could be fitted for their respective missions, 
 without passing through these deep mental con- 
 flicts — we may call them spiritual exercises: we 
 may say such men are on the confines of insanity 
 (and so they may be); but the lives of Martin 
 Luther, of Ignatius Loyola, of John Bunyan, and 
 of the "Wesleys are examples ready to our hand, 
 that the greatest minds must undergo this prepara- 
 tory discipline, before being fully qualified to guide 
 or powerfully to influence the minds x)f others. 
 Though the query was presented to George Fox 
 and to each of the great men just enumerated in 
 a different light and under widely differing circum- 
 stances, substantially the question that disturbed 
 their spirits was the same, "What shall I do to 
 be saved?" The answer returned to each was 
 practically the same also; the same that was re- 
 turned to the Philippian gaoler by Paul and Silas, 
 but the difference of mental constitution, the dif- 
 ferent epochs in. which they lived, the differences 
 of national character and of previous edueationj 
 
GEORGE FOX. 15 
 
 marked out for each, of these imperial minds dis- 
 tinct and widely differing lines of action. 
 
 An influential element in Fox's case was the con- 
 scientiousness which formed so prominent a feature 
 in his character. On one occasion we read of his 
 affliction at "the delinquency of a professor;" at 
 another time he says, "I could have wished that 
 I had never been born, or that I had been bom 
 blind, that I might not have seen wickedness or 
 vanity; and deaf, that I might never have heard 
 vain and wicked words, or the Lord's name blas- 
 phemed."* In fact, his despair was occasioned 
 rather by the wickedness existing in the world 
 at large, than from sins which he was conscious 
 of having himself committed. He " cried to the 
 Lord," saying, " Why should I be thus, seeing 
 I was never addicted to commit those evils ? " 
 And the Lord answered "That it was needful I 
 should have a sense of all conditions: how else 
 should I speak to all conditions, "f Bewildered 
 by the mental anguish these feelings occasioned 
 him, George Fox unsuccessfully sought spiritual 
 advice from the most noted religious professors he 
 came in contact with. His description of them 
 tallies with our previously expressed ideas respect- 
 George Fox's Journal, p. 4, 1st ed. t ^'^^- V- 13- 
 
16 QUAKEEISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 ing the clergy as a class : they pronounced con- 
 fidently on any doctrinal questions Fox put to them, 
 but they did not understand the wants of his bur- 
 dened spirit, and he left them unrelieved, regarding 
 them as "miserable comforters." Despairing of 
 human aid, he applies with increased assiduity to 
 the study of Scripture ; throughout his life he 
 spoke of the sacred writings as being "very pre- 
 cious" to him; and yet he was, perhaps, hardly 
 aware of the fall extent of his obligations to them. 
 They were his sole companions in "hollow trees" 
 and " desolate places," and the intimate knowledge 
 he thus obtained of their contents was of inesti- 
 mable benefit to himself and to the society he was 
 to found. 
 
 In the course of the year 1647 Fox emerged 
 from the gloom that had so long rested on his 
 spirit ; he found one, " even Christ Jesus, that 
 could speak to his condition."* In evangelical lan- 
 guage, he found " peace with God, through faith in 
 Jesus Christ." He felt a great change had come 
 over him ; he had tried to get help from man, and 
 had failed; he had been driven to Chris.t Himself, 
 and, as he believed, had now received light imme- 
 diately from Him. 
 
 * George Pox's Journal, p. 8. 
 
GEOEGE EOX. 17 
 
 Fox rejoiced in his new life ; he " could have 
 wept day and night with tears of joy ; "* he 
 longed to impart his discovery of the spirituality 
 of true religion to others. So he entered on his 
 mission as a religious reformer^ commissioned to 
 bring back to the Church a long-lost and forgotten 
 truth -^- even the truth that Jesus Christ, by his 
 Spirit, dwells in the hearts of all believers. "I 
 was commanded," says he, "to turn people to that 
 inward light, spirit, and grace, by which all might 
 know their salvation and their way to God, even 
 that Divine Spirit which would lead them into all 
 truth, and which I infallibly knew would never 
 deceive any."f With persuasive eloquence, though 
 rude and unlettered. Fox began to call men from 
 " forms and shadows " to the " life, light, and power 
 of Christ in their own hearts." Numerous converts 
 attached themselves to him; and it is important to 
 note that their primary ground of union (as officially 
 stated by the Yearly Meeting of London), was " agree- 
 ment of sentiment in regard to Christ's inward teach- 
 ing." $ In that intolerant age, persecution in every 
 form tracked his steps; and we do but justice to 
 
 * George 'Fox's Journal, p. 14. f ^Wd. p. 23. 
 
 J Preface to 3rd edition of volume of Discipline of the Religious 
 Society of Friends; with Advices, S(c., p. 7, 
 
 C 
 
18 QUAKEEISM : PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 hfe memory by adding, that it was borne in, a 
 spirit that attested the reality of his piety. It is 
 not within our province to narrate the successes, 
 the trials, the persecutions, and martyrdoms of 
 the "early Friends," for our present purpose it 
 is sufficient if we have shown, that the bringing 
 man immediately to Christ, was the radical idea, of 
 Quakerism. 
 
 The truth thus underlying the whole superstruc- 
 ture that has been raised upon it, is essentially deep 
 though simple. It is capable of varied modes of 
 expression, and we shall have to show that, con- 
 clusions, in defiance of all reason and logic, have 
 been deduced from the fundamental and Catholic 
 position, that a measure of Divine light is given 
 to all men — differing, it may be, in degree, as the 
 twinkling of the remotest planet differs from the 
 splendour of the noonday sun — and that it is only 
 through the "testimony of the Eternal Spirit," 
 manifested in the heaart and conscience, that the 
 " true knowledge of God hath been, is, and can 
 be revealed" to man. The clumsiness" of language 
 adequately to express deep ethical truths has been 
 often felt and acknowledged. Barclay himself was 
 careful to guard his thesis on this subject with 
 the proviso, that it must never be understood in 
 
FUNDAMENTAL VIEWS OF THE FOUNDEES. 19 
 
 any sense that shotild "contradict the outwai'd 
 testimony of the Scriptures, or right and sound' 
 I'sason."* 
 
 From the central idea above defined, sprang at 
 once the strength and the weakness of Quakerism ; 
 the strength, which necessarily flowed from the 
 apprehension of so great a truth — the weakness 
 incident to human fallibility, in faihng to perceive 
 the conditions and limitations that should deters- 
 mine the practical application of this truth. It 
 was the feeling that they were grasping a reality 
 iuslead of a shadow — the substance instead of 
 the form — that induced so many persons to ac- 
 cept the views proclaimed by Fox and his col- 
 leagues; and, inspired by the lofty consciousness 
 of being under: the immediate eye of Heaven, 
 the early Friends presented for forty years one 
 of the most unsullied pictures of Christian re- 
 signation under suffering that the world has yet 
 witnessed, ultimately triumphing by the might of 
 passive resistance, " wearying: out persecution," and 
 so pcEFchasing for England the priceless jewel of 
 religious liberty.-. N"ot' that they were the only 
 labourers in accomplishing this great work; but 
 how large their share in it was, is increasingly per- 
 * Barclay's Apology, Frop. ii. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 ceived by historians and philosophers.* But we 
 hasten to inquire, how far the general theology and 
 the practices of George Fox and his friends were 
 affected by their belief in the essential spirituality 
 of the religion of Christ. The influence of this 
 belief was twofold — positive and negative : positive, 
 inasmuch as it was the root from which sprang the 
 Society's views in relation to the worship of God, 
 including the rejection of a human priesthood, and 
 of all ceremonial rites ; negative, by making the 
 Quaker representation of Christian faith and prac- 
 tice specially liable to distortion, by the overshadow- 
 ing of correlative truths (as the doctrine of Christ's 
 atonement for sin, the profitableness of Holy Scrip- 
 ture, &c.), and by inducing a general disparagement 
 of secondary and instrumental means in the nurture 
 and maintenance of religion. 
 
 "We propose, in the first place, to examine the 
 positive developments of the doctrine of the "in- 
 ward light," and their influence on the Society of 
 Friends ; and afterwards the less obvious, but hardly 
 less influential, consequences, indirectly springing 
 from the same source. " Christ having instituted," 
 
 * See Colquhoun's Short Sketches of some Notable Lives ; Ban- 
 croft's Hist, of America, vol. ii.; Chevalier Bunsen's Signs of 
 the Times, ■p. 298; Dixon's Lives of Penn and Blake. 
 
EEJECTION or A PEIESTHOOD. 21 
 
 says the learned and profound Neander, " a fellow- 
 ship of divine life, which proceeding from the equal, 
 and equally immediate relation of all to the one God, 
 as the divine source of life to all; . . . there 
 cotdd be no longer a priestly or prophetic office, con- 
 stituted to serve as a medium for the propagation 
 and development of the Kingdom of God, on which 
 office the religious consciousness of the community 
 was to be dependent. Such a guild of priests as 
 existed in the previous systems of religion, em- 
 powered to guide other men, who remained as it 
 were in a state of religious pupilage, having the 
 exclusive care of providing for their religious wants, 
 and serving as mediators by whom all other men 
 must first be placed in connection with God and 
 divine things — such a priestly caste could find no 
 place within Christianity."* It was the emphatic 
 acceptance of the doctrine, so luminously set forth 
 in the preceding passage, that induced the early 
 Friends to firame their ecclesiastical polity in har- 
 mony with what they took to be its requirings ; 
 and also to refuse to acknowledge by pecuniary 
 payments, even when enjoined by the civil power, 
 the claims of the clergy, or priests, as they termed 
 them, of the Established Church. 
 
 * Neander's Ch. Hist., vol. i. p. 245. 
 
22 QTTAKEEISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 It As istated in a document issued by the TTearly 
 Meeting of London in 1851, that "no part of the 
 .testimony of our .early Friends was more clear and 
 explicit than that which, ; in the obedience of faith, 
 they bore ^against the human priesthood and .its 
 
 ■offices, and against the. system of tithes 
 
 To acknowledge this priesthood, and to render to 
 it the tithe. of the beasts of tibe field., and of the 
 produce of the earth, was, in their view, to be un- 
 faithful in their allegiance to Him who, having come 
 a ' High Priest for ever after the order of Melchise- 
 dec,' had put an end to the priesthood of Aaron, and 
 .abohshed also the tithes and offerings that pertained 
 thereto."* There had been considerable unsettle- 
 ment in England on the subject of tithes before the 
 times of George Fox,f . and when his earnest preach- 
 ing was first leading great .niumbers of pCTSons to 
 Tascceptthe spiritual views of religion he enunciated, 
 and when he. anticipated the reformation of ^the Uni- 
 versal Church as the result of his labours, not the 
 mere gathering of asect,. there were, doubtlessj.some 
 who -united themselves with iim under the idea of 
 .thereby obtaining exemptions from these burdens. 
 
 * An Address to the Society of Friends on the Inconsistency of 
 Tithes, Sj'c., from the Yearly Meeting of London, p. 9, 1851. 
 f See Pearson's Great Case of Tithes, p. 24, ed. 1730. 
 
TITHES. 23 
 
 In this they were disappointed; and when, instead 
 of receiving exemption, it became evident that their 
 profession exposed to more peouniary loss on this ac- 
 count, rather than less, such persons left the Society. 
 As the extract previously given rightly states, none 
 of the " testimonies " of the early Eriends were 
 more decided than that 'against tithes; and most 
 heavily they suffered in person and. estate in its 
 defence (imprisonment not being prevented by the 
 Toleration Act of 1690, but continuing to the be- 
 ginning of the present century). Great has been 
 the influence which the treatment of this subject 
 has exerted on the Society in various ways. To 
 <juote again .from the document before alluded to: 
 " In their resistance to ecclesiastical as -well as mili- 
 tary demands. Friends have acted on the broad and 
 palpable distinction which exists between payments 
 made specifically for objects inconsistent with the 
 law of Christ, or directly to an authority which 
 -they cannot conscientiously recognize, and pay- 
 ments into the national treasury for the general pur- 
 poses of the State, though some of the purposes may 
 be objectionable." Yet whilst tiiB JLondon Yearly 
 Meeting may define this distinction to be" broad ;and 
 palpable," to not a few minds within the Society, as 
 well as to many in the community at large, it has 
 
24 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 seemed to be far otherwise ; and that these imposts, 
 sanctioned by Act of Parliament, are not essen- 
 tially different from other taxes, their direct payment 
 to the recipient, instead of passing through the 
 national treasury, being an accident not affecting 
 the responsibility of the payer. No one subject has 
 claimed more of the attention and advice of the 
 Yearly Meeting, as is evidenced by the space occu- 
 pied by it in the Society's volume of "Rules and 
 Advices," in which no less than forty-three distinct 
 paragraphs are devoted to " tithes, sufferings, &c." 
 By the first, dated 1675, it will be seen how early 
 difficulty was felt in inducing all Friends to refiise 
 these payments ; and from the Journal of John Grif- 
 fiths, it would appear as if the numbers paying these 
 imposts without demur, or resorting to dishonourable 
 compromises, was very considerable in the beginning 
 and middle of the eighteenth century. With the 
 resuscitation of the discipline about 1760, increased 
 attention was paid to this subject, and disownment 
 was the penalty inflicted on those Friends who con- 
 tinued to pay tithes or church-rates. This increased 
 rigour was one cause of driving many families from 
 the rural districts, — some into our great cities, some 
 to foreign lands, whilst some united themselves with 
 other religious denominations. 
 
TITHES, ETC. 25 
 
 It is needless for us hei'e to enter on the question, 
 whether Christianity sanctions or demands the refusal 
 to pay any impost directed by the law of the land ; 
 but it is our decided conviction that no scriptural 
 warrant exists for making such refusal an essential 
 condition of church fellowship, and that the attempt 
 so to make it has been injurious to the Society of 
 Friends. Whether we take Scripture only for our 
 guide, or whether we examine the history of the 
 Universal Church, we shall arrive at the same con- 
 clusion — that whilst man's weakness compels the 
 entrance to membership in earthly churches to be 
 somewhat "narrower than the gates of heaven," 
 every needless hindrance lessens both the usefulness 
 and the stability of the Church that imposes]^it. We 
 shall hereafter point out that the practice of the 
 "early Friends" was sometimes preferable to their 
 written statements. The present case is an excep- 
 tion. William Penn, when defining the essentials 
 of church fellowship in his Address to Protestants, 
 says, "Nothing of weight can be objected" against 
 the position that " belief with the heart, and the 
 confession with the mouth, that Jesus is the Christ 
 and Son of God," is sufficient " to entitle a man to 
 communion here, and salvation hereafter."* William 
 
 * Fenn's Works, vol. i. p. 76. 
 
26 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 Penn* also denounced in very nearly the same words 
 since nsed by Dr. Arnold, ■ " the double error " of 
 having "a strict bond in matters of opinion, and 
 none at all in matters of practice." f The Society of 
 J'riends has ^fellen iuto a mistake the reverse of this ; 
 and we shall frequently have to draw attention to ihe 
 loss of numbers and of influence which it has conti- 
 nually suffered through attempting to enforce com- 
 pliance with modes of action not inmiediately con- 
 nected with moral duties, though possibly recommended 
 by considerations of Christian expediency — a class of 
 subjects on which "wise men agree to differ." 
 
 We conclude this department of our sulgect in the 
 words of a living author, as placing in a clear light 
 some of the consequences that result from making' the 
 . refusal of ecclesiastical demands a criterion of Chris- 
 tian faithfiilness, and an essential to church member- 
 ship : " It induces," says Dr. Ash, " many members 
 of ihe Society who have no scruple of conscience 
 against paying these imposts, unwillingly to refuse 
 their payment, on the lower and very questionable 
 ground of complying with the wishes, and avoiding 
 the censure, of their brethren. It subjects those who 
 do pay them to that censure, and, consequently, to 
 
 * Perm's Works : Address to Protestants, sec. iii. 
 % Life of Dr. Arnold, vol. ii. p. 15. 
 
PUBUC WORSHIP. 27 
 
 loss of reputation in the Church. In both cases its 
 tendency must necessarily often be, in a greater or 
 less degree, to alienate their own affections, and stiU 
 more tihose of their children, from the Society." * 
 
 We believe tihe peculiar form of public worship 
 adopted by the Friends has not a little to do with 
 .their declining numbers. In the desire to abstain 
 from aU " forms," they meet together for the purpose 
 of public worship in. silence, and should tio minister 
 .be present (now often the case in many meetings) not 
 a word wiU be spoken, and the worshippers, after sit- 
 ting an hour or two in silence, disperse. When thus 
 assembled, says Robert Barclay, "the great work of 
 one and all ought to be to wait upon God, and re- 
 tiring out of their own thoughts and imaginations, to 
 feel the Lord's presence, and know a gathering into 
 His name indeed, where He is in the midst, accord- 
 ing to His promise. And as every one is thus 
 gathered and so met together, inwardly m their 
 spirits, as well as outwardly in their persons, there 
 the secret power and virtue of life is known to re- 
 fresh the soul, and the pure motions and breathings 
 of God's Spirit are felt to arise, from which, as 
 words of declaration, prayers, or praises arise, the 
 aeeeptable worship is known, which edifies Hie 
 * Dr. Ash's Seven Letters to a Friend, p. 37. 
 
28 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT, 
 
 Church, and is well pleasing to God. . . • Yea, 
 though there be not a word spoken, yet is the true 
 spiritual worship performed, and the body of Christ 
 edified." * There will be few spiritually minded men 
 of any persuasion, who wiU affirm that true worship 
 may not be rendered to Almighty God in meetings 
 conducted in this manner ; and that it is so rendered, 
 the experience of the Friends for two hundred years 
 warrants us in affirming. But the Society has gone 
 much further than merely to defend silent worship, 
 as one manner of fitly conducting this religious 
 duty. Barclay, in his Apology for the True Chris- 
 tain Divinity of the People called Quakers (and it will 
 be remembered this volume is printed and circulated 
 by the Yearly Meeting of London), affirms that 
 " silence is, and must necessarily be, a special and 
 principal part of God's worship; "f and again, in the 
 words of the proposition on this subject, after re- 
 counting "what true worship is," he adds: "All 
 other worship, then, both praises, prayers, or preach- 
 ings, which man sets about in his own will, and at 
 his own appointment, which he can both begin and 
 end at his pleasure, do, or leave undone, as himself 
 seeth meet, whether they be a prescribed form, as a 
 liturgy, &c., or prayers conceived extempore by the 
 ' Barclay's Apology, p. 333 (eleyenth ed.). f Ibid. p. 324. 
 
PUBLIC WOESHIP. 29 
 
 natural strengiih and faculty of the mind, they are all 
 but superstition, wiU-worship, and ahominable idolatry 
 in the sight of God, which are now to be denied, and 
 rejected, and separated from, in this day of his spiri- 
 tual arising."* This paragraph was penned about the 
 year 1675, when the Society of Friends had existed 
 but twenty-eight years, and when most of those who 
 professed its doctrines and attended its worship were 
 persons who did so from deep personal conviction. It 
 is not difficult to understand the spiritual refreshment 
 they experienced in their religious meetings; and 
 great allowance may justly be made for the asperity 
 with which the pubKc worship of other religionists is 
 denounced. But it by no means follows that what 
 was suitable for the " early Friends," with their 
 earnest piety, is fit, or even desirable, for those who 
 are very differently circumstanced. Barclay prac- 
 tically admits the unfitness of long-continued silence 
 to promiscuous gatherings for Divine worship, in 
 which there may be, and often are, "many young 
 persons and individuals unconverted to God." In 
 his seventh head under the proposition on "Worship, 
 he says, " There can be nothing more opposite to the 
 natural will and wisdom of man than this silent wait- 
 ing upon God ; " and it might have been added that it 
 * Barclay's Apology, p. 325. 
 
30 QUAKERISM : PAST ANU PRESENT. 
 
 is. opposed to the instincts of such Christians as have 
 not been accustomed to its' practice : the simple reason 
 bJeing, that the structure of, the human mind is not 
 adapted to long-continued silence ; and this- is espe- 
 cially the case in the earHer stages of life. 
 
 Several extracts might be. furnished from the 
 writings of persons intimately acquainted with the 
 actual working of. the Friends' mode of silent wor- 
 ship confirmatory of this opinion; we insert one from 
 the pea of Elizabeth Fry. She says : " To believe, 
 as I. do, that- some of our congregations are iu an 
 imregenerate state, how must their silent meetings; 
 be past? And for the babes in Christ I have great 
 fears, inasmuch as true, solemn, silent worship is a 
 very high administration of spiritual worship. I 
 frequently fear for such that more external aid is 
 wanted, though I see not how it is to be given. I 
 also feel the want of each one openly uniting in some 
 external act of worship, for there is much in taking 
 an absolute part in what is doings to feel a full in- 
 terest in it." * The altered character of the rehgious 
 meetings of the Friends at the present time from 
 those at the rise of the Society will hereafter claim 
 further attention, as the subject is deeply important. 
 
 The' mistake of the " early Friends" was, we 
 * Memoirs of M, Fry, vol. ii. p. 188. 
 
PUBLIC WOESHIP. 3.1 
 
 apprdiend, that of supposing that the one form of 
 worship which corresponded most closely, in their 
 judgment, with the spmtual nature of this exercise, 
 was the only one acceptable to God, or worthy the 
 adoption of his Church ; whereas they would have 
 most successfully commended their practices to 
 others, had they remembered that "worship is 
 planned altogether in adaptation to the limitations 
 of the inferior party, not in proportion , to the in- 
 finitude of the superior ; " * and more truly would 
 they have advanced the cause of spiritual religion in 
 the world, by uniting the practice of silent worship 
 with those other arrangements which, though not 
 worship itself, do at times prepare the way for it; 
 as the audible reading of Holy Scripture, the teach- 
 ing of Christian truth, &c. ; not now to recount 
 the arguments which may be adduced on behalf of 
 congregational singing. There must necessarily be 
 some human arrangements for the performance of 
 public worship, as the appointment of place and time, 
 which is fully admitted by Barclay.f Whether it 
 be desirable to limit these arrangements to the very 
 barest matters of necessity, instead of employing the 
 appliances indicated by experiraice to be most con- 
 
 * Natural History of Enthusiasm, p. 28. 
 
 t See his answer to Objection 2, proposition on Worship. 
 
32 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 ducive to the performance of real worship, is, then, 
 not a question of principle, but merely one of degree; 
 doubtless left undetermined by Scripture, that each 
 church might make such arrangements as it found 
 to be most suited to its special circumstances. 
 
 Robert Barclay's proposition on the Ministry 
 runs as follows: — *'As by the light or gift of God 
 aU true knowledge in things spiritual is received 
 and revealed, so by the same, as it is manifested 
 and received in the heart, by the strength and 
 power thereof, every true minister of the Gospel 
 is ordained, prepared, and supplied in the work of 
 the ministry; and by the leading, moving, and 
 drawing hereof, ought every evangelist and Chris- 
 tian pastor to be led and ordered in his labour 
 and work of the Gospel, both as to the place where, 
 as to the persons to whom, and as to the time 
 wherein he is to minister."* The necessity of the 
 Divine call to the work of the ministry is generally 
 acknowledged : the ordination services of the Church 
 of England recognize it, as well as those of other 
 evangelical Churches, though it must be owned its 
 absolute necessity, and the personal requirements 
 which are involved in the acknowledgment, con- 
 tinue, as was the case two hundred years ago, to be 
 * Barclay, Prop. x. p. 256. 
 
MINISTRY. 33 
 
 far too much overlooked. The number of muiisters 
 in the first rise of the Society of Friends was very 
 large indeed; but, in most parts of the country 
 they rapidly became less numerous, and during 
 the present century this diminution has been still 
 more marked. The Society has been accustomed to 
 attribute this deficiency of preachers to a "want of 
 individual faithfulness," and to the "prevalence of a 
 worldly spirit;" but latterly many of its more thought- 
 ful and intelligent members have perceived that there 
 have been other causes at work in the production of 
 this result. We have now before us numerous recent 
 pamphlets and documents relating to the Society. 
 Their disclosures are a striking confirmation of the 
 wise maxim, that " extremes beget extremes." That 
 the attempt to claim a degree of direct Divine direc- 
 tion in the preaching of the Gospel unauthorized 
 by Scripture, and not required by the necessity of 
 the case (if we may use such an expression), whUst 
 it might, in the first outburst of zeal, increase the 
 number of preachers; yet when that zeal cooled, 
 its effect was precisely the reverse; and, instead 
 of having in each congregation many who possessed 
 and exercised the gift and "true gospel liberty of 
 prophesying," such became even less numerous than 
 in the other churches of Christendom, where the 
 
34 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 ministrations -were confined to the one "person," 
 or "parson," as he was termed — a condition of 
 things that had been denounced by George Fox 
 as a great usurpation of 'Christian liberty. The 
 conclusion' of the paragraph from Barclay pre- 
 viously quoted, is but a mild instance compared 
 ■with some that might 'be furnished, as to the ex- 
 tent to which immediate spiritual influence has been 
 looked for in the performance of the ministerial 
 calling — 'a degree hardly inferior to that granted to 
 the Hebrew prophets^ — ^comprehending directions as 
 to the matter ^spoken, the words to be used, time, 
 •place, &c.* 
 
 "When -such an amount of spiritual guidance has 
 been regarded as needfiil to a rightly authorised 
 minister, we are not surprised to learn from a docu- 
 ment read at the Yearly Meeting of 1856, that in 
 the Quarterly Meeting of Bristol and Somerset, 
 which contains about one thousand members, be- 
 sides other attenders, "two-thirds of the meetings 
 have no acknowledged minister," an experience not 
 
 * We are informed that in a recent conference of JEiiends, an 
 eminent minister — a man of extended observation and of deep 
 Christian experience — spoke strongly against persons expecting 
 a levelation, " as distinct as would be required to predict the 
 downfall of a city, before they would yenture to open their mouths 
 in vocal prayer or ministry." 
 
MINISTRY. 35 
 
 differing from that of many other parts of Eng- 
 land. The document proceeds, with as much mode- 
 ration as wisdom, "We think there has been too 
 great a tendency, ia many instances, ;to restrict the 
 exercise of spiritual gifts to the services of acknow- 
 ledged ministers, and that a disposition to look for 
 emtraordinary revelations has led to a disregard of 
 that all-pervading influence by which the naitural 
 powers of the mind might have been sanctified to 
 the Lord's service. .... We beheve, indeed, 
 that the tendency of which we speak accounts for 
 the neglect of many of those gifts which have been 
 allowed to lie dormant amongst us, and that it has, 
 in some instances, produced a discouraging effect 
 on those, who might otherwise have been engaged 
 in the work of the ministry to their own profit 
 and to the edification of their friends. It may 
 also sometimes have been the case, that an unwill- 
 ingness to become the servant of Christ, and to 
 confess Him before men, has led us to shelter our- 
 selves under the pretext of fearing not to serve 
 Jlim aright."* 
 
 It is stated in the seventh edition of the Mncy- 
 
 * Eeport to Bristol and Somerset Quarterly Meeting from its 
 Committee for promoting the Christian Interests of its younger Mem- 
 bers, p. 13. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 QUAKERISM : PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 clopcedia Britanniea that since the first generation 
 of preachers passed away, the Society of Friends 
 has possessed but few ministers conspicuous for their 
 eloquence and general ability, and that much of the 
 ministry heard in its meeting-houses since that time 
 is justly chargeable with serious defects of style and 
 expression, tending to obscure the meaning of the 
 words spoken, and thus detracting from their useful- 
 ness. Without fully endorsing this statement, we 
 are prepared to admit its partial truth, and to grant 
 that the quality of its preaching must be regarded 
 as of great moment to a Church's welfare. The 
 defects complained of are, we think, readily trace- 
 able to the prevalence of the two ideas, that intel- 
 lectual attainments are of little or no value to a 
 true minister, and that sermons should be altogetlier 
 unpremeditated. As regards the first doctrine, it is 
 similar to several we shall encounter in our examina- 
 tion of Quakerism, an overstrained truth. Scripture 
 and experience alike prove that " head knowledge " 
 alone is impotent to make a man a minister of the 
 Gospel ; but when, as in the cases of Paul or 
 Apollos, the Divine call is obeyed by men of intel- 
 lectual power and attainment, the consecration and 
 employment of such power in the work of the 
 ministry is ihrice blessed to the Church. The 
 
KELIGIOirS TEACHING. 37 
 
 notion that all true ministry should be quite un- 
 premeditated, appears to us a kindred error, as it 
 is evidently as competent for the Divine Spirit to 
 assist or direct the consideration of a subject to be 
 addressed to an audience a day or a week before its 
 delivery, as it is after a minister has taken his seat 
 in a meeting, with his mind like "a blank sheet."* 
 It is one of those anomalies which human nature 
 sometimes presents, that the body of Christians pro- 
 fessing the greatest jealousy of any attempt to limit 
 the operations of the Holy Spirit, should, never- 
 theless, itself have fixed such very narrow bounds 
 within which the divine direction is to be exerted 
 on the minds of its ministers. 
 
 The neglect of the " Gift of Teaching " is 
 another department of the subject now under con- 
 sideration. This gift is spoken of in the New 
 Testament as one distinct from that of prophesy- 
 ing, or preaching, though not unfirequently both 
 services were entrusted to one individual. The 
 gift of teaching was specially connected with the 
 intellectual faculties, that of prophesying with the 
 emotional: "Christianity," says Neander, "claimed 
 for its service the faculties of knowledge no less 
 than those of feeling. Where one of these faculties 
 
 * Quoted by J. J. Gurney: Memoirs, 2nd ed., vol. ii. p. 112. 
 
38 QUAKEEISM : PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 predominated to the exclusion of the other, disturb- 
 ances of iihe' Christian consciousness and; life always 
 ensuedi The healthy and harmonious development, 
 by virtue of which all exclusive preponderance of 
 single charismata would be precluded, was one of 
 the characteristic features of the Apostolic period." 
 Hence care was taken " that there should never fail 
 to be in the communities such as were qualified; to 
 satisfy the need of knowledge — men capable of un- 
 folding and of defending for lihem Christian truth."* 
 At first sight it is difficult to understand the neglect 
 of the gift of teaching by the Society of Friends. 
 George Fox was not ignorant of the variety of gifts 
 bestowed by the Head of the Church on his people, 
 and that all were not " apostles," nor yet " prophets." 
 Evidence also remains to show, that he intended the 
 meetings for discipline to be opportunities in which 
 the gift of teaching might be exercised ; it is also 
 probable that not a little that was communicated in 
 meetings for worship, in lihose early times, was more 
 strictly religious instruction than direct exhortation. 
 But from the indiscriminate disparagement of intel- 
 lectual knowledge- — firom the repeated assertion of 
 the early Friends^ that in respect to the qualifica- 
 tions of a Gospel minister, " letter learning was 
 * N'eander's Ch. Hist, vol. i. p. 254. 
 
PEAYEB. 39 
 
 more frequently hurtful than helpfiil;"* as well as 
 from the idea that every public declaration of 
 rehgious truth should be an extempore act; doc- 
 trines that appear to us overstrained in relation to 
 ministry, and quite untenable when applied to 
 "reh^ous teaching" — it is not surprising that this^ 
 important gift has been very little exercised amongst 
 the Friends, and its neglect has tended to confirm 
 that passive religious, condition which has charac- 
 terised their religious body for one hundred and fifty 
 years. 
 
 " Neither by their example nor their precepts did 
 these good men who were instrumental in gathering 
 the Society, place obstacles or discouragement in 
 tha way of the exercise of prayer, whether in the 
 privacy of lie closet, the social, circle, or in the 
 public assembly." f Such i& an assertion, recently 
 made in an official and widely circulated document. 
 We should; hesitate; before endorsing it, even if con- 
 fined to the. writings of the, early Friends> as the data; 
 on which to rest an opinion ; and on inquiring into 
 the actual working of their principles respecting; 
 prayer, we are: compelled to believe that lihey have 
 restrained, and. limited its use in a, manner very 
 
 ♦ Barclay's Apologyt p. 283, Worship xt. 
 
 f Report of Committee of York Quarterly Meeting on the means 
 of extending Care to the younger STembers, 1856, p. 8. 
 
40 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 Injurious to the religious welfare of individuals, and 
 to the maintenance of healthy piety in the body at 
 large. The doctrine of Robert Barclay, that prayer 
 can only be offered acceptably by the help of the 
 Holy Spirit, and that of other professing Christians, 
 that the " sense of need " is the only warrant re- 
 quired, are not necessarily antagonistic, for that 
 sense is one "which the Spirit of God alone can 
 give." But more than this sense of need has been 
 looked for by the Friends, sensible spiritual influence 
 has been expected, and of a character that prevented 
 any previous arrangements as to time or place, 
 though apparently they are not less needful for 
 ensuring the performance of this duty than they 
 are for that of worship. Thus the habit of prayer 
 is not fostered, and through fear of praying amiss 
 some have refrained from praying at all, or at any 
 rate with that frequency and freedom so essential to 
 the Christian's growth, and so enjoined on an early 
 Church by the great Apostle, "In everything by 
 prayer and supplication, ... let your requests 
 be made known unto God."* This evil has dimi- 
 nished of late years, and the regular Scripture family 
 readings, morning and evening, with the solemn 
 pause before and after, have gone far to remedy a 
 * Philippians iv. 6. 
 
SYMBOLIC BITES. 41 
 
 condition of things alike inimical to the maintenance 
 of real piety in adult persons, and to the education of 
 the young in " good religious habits ; " but not before 
 it had contributed to that lethargy and stagnation 
 which crept over the Society like a paralysis, in the 
 epoch subsequent to the death of its founders. 
 
 In directing attention to the disuse of the bap- 
 tismal and eucharistic rites, it is at once apparent 
 that whatever judgment be entertained regarding the 
 scriptural authority for their continued observance, 
 will greatly influence any opinion that may be 
 offered as to the effect produced on the Society 
 by omitting to employ these " means of grace," 
 as they are termed. Those who believe them to 
 be divinely appointed ordinances, the observance of 
 which is permanently obligatory on the Christian 
 Church, will expect to find in their neglect, results 
 inimical to the spiritual health of individuals, and 
 therefore of the body at large. But even were this 
 position granted, before it could be safely assumed 
 that the non-observance of these ceremonies was a 
 cause of the decline of Quakerism, it would be 
 necessary to prove the direct modus operandi. 
 
 Without, however, entering into the scriptural 
 m^its of the controversy in relation to these rites, it 
 may be alleged without danger of contradiction, that. 
 
42 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 excepting the Society of Friends, a very few other 
 small bodies of Christians, and some isolated indivi- 
 duals^ the professing Church from Apostolic times 
 downwards, whilst greatly divided in judgment, as to 
 the nature and mode of observing these rites, has 
 been united in the opinion that they are of divine 
 institution, and that their observance is permanently 
 binding on. the followers, of Christ. Whilst neither 
 this fact, nor that of their observance by the Lord' 
 Jesus himself, is sufficient to sustain their contir 
 nuance, if manifestly opposed to the letter or spiJcit 
 of Scripture, it strongly indicates the propriety of 
 modesty and charity on the part of those who do not 
 observe them, especially when their refusal to do so 
 rests on no distinct scriptural injunction, but on con- 
 siderations deduced from the general scope and oha=- 
 racter of the Gospel revelation. The Society of 
 Friends has disowned, individuals of irreproachable 
 conduct and undoubted piety (within tiie present 
 century) for no other reason than tiiat of having 
 undergone the rite of baptism under an apprehen- 
 sion of reUgious duiy.. In such acts we do discover 
 a cause of decadence. Gon^dering it; is an undis- 
 puted fact that both these rites were largely observed 
 in the primitive Church, and that no explicit direc- 
 tion was given as to their cessation at a fiiture 
 
SYMBOLIC RITES. 43 
 
 period; whatever be our opinions as to their ob- 
 servance now, not being obligatory or even expe- 
 dient — and the writer entirely accepts this view of 
 the question ; it must be conceded that the disown- 
 ment of an individual for undergoing the rite of 
 water baptism is an infraction, of religious liberty, 
 and of the right of private judgment, by a Church 
 which had struggled " so bravely and so well" to 
 obtain these boons from the civD. power. The 
 number of members lost on this ground has not 
 been large, though perhaps somewhat greater than 
 might be supposed^ inasmuch, as individuals expect- 
 ing to derive spiritual benefit from these rites, have 
 usually resigned their membership rather than subject 
 themselves to the censure of the body. 
 
44 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ORIGINAL VIEWS OF THE FOUNDERS OF QUAKERISM 
 COSTNECTED WITH ITS DECLINE, CONTINUED. 
 
 Indirect efiFects of distorted doctrinal views — Disparagement of 
 tlie Reason — ^Fine Arts — Scriptures — Discipline. 
 
 ■' Christianity did not destroy any of the natural distinctions 
 grounded in the laws of the original creation, but sanctified and 
 ennobled them ; for our Saviour's words that he came not to destroy 
 but to fulfil, apply also to the natural world." — Nbandee's Church 
 History, vol. L p. 247. 
 
 Hating in the preceding chapter treated of the 
 Qualcer practices directly originating out of the pro- 
 minence assigned to the personal work of the Holy- 
 Spirit, we proceed to inquire into the more indirect 
 effects flowing from the same source. 
 
 The Friends have always maintained that, whilst 
 behef in the reality of Christ's inward teaching was 
 the primary ground of union to the founders of the 
 Society, yet that their acceptance of that belief came 
 as an addition to their previous theology, not instead 
 of it. Whilst this statement, rightly understood, is 
 capable of satisfactory proof, we know that to many 
 
VIEWS OF THE FOUNDEES. 45 
 
 who now read the writings of the " early Friends," 
 the exposition of Christian truth there presented 
 does not appear identical with tliat obtained by a 
 simple examination of the New Testament. The 
 fundamental doctrines taught by Fox, Penn, and 
 Barclay, are the doctrines of Scripture, but the re- 
 lative positions respectively assigned those doctrines 
 differ from that assigned by the inspired writers. 
 The grand outlines of the pictures are alike, but 
 not the perspective, and there is a material differ- 
 ence in the filling in, and in the colouring of the 
 objects. The inward and spiritual offices of Christ 
 are magnified (more especially by the two writers 
 last named), at the expense of his outward appear- 
 ance, as Jesus of Nazareth, and of his vicarious 
 offering for sin. 
 
 This imperfect representation was principally oc- 
 casioned by the peculiarity of the stand-point occupied 
 by these authors; they perceived that an essential 
 branch of Christian faith had been greatly obscured, 
 and in their declaration of the Gospel message, they 
 gave the principal prominence to the one doctrine 
 of which they were the expositors and publishers. 
 When perusing their ponderous folios, two centuries 
 after they were penned, we must constantly bear in 
 mind the altered position of religious opinion in the 
 
46 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 Churcli at the present time from what it was then, or 
 we shall do Fox and his associates injustice. 
 
 When an error has to be combated, the opposing 
 "truth will probably be dwelt on, with an emphasis pro- 
 portionate to the greatness of its previous neglect — an 
 emphasis that is injurious and out of place, when the 
 error it was to counteract has greatly abated or ceased 
 to exist. Analogous circumstances are frequent in 
 the world of matter, as well as of mind: "take the 
 instance of the sea-coast that has encroached on 
 the old domains of the ocean; 'far inland you meet 
 with the high banks a brave people raised against 
 the assaults of the waves ; no biUows now break near 
 these banks, but you not the less admire the enter- 
 prise and spirit of a race long since passed away, in 
 their endeavours to guard against a once imminent 
 danger. Somewhat analogous was the position occu- 
 pied by the founders of Quakerism in the religious 
 world. 
 
 It was a high attainment the Apostle Paul enjoined 
 on Timothy, that he should declare the truth " with- 
 out distortion."* In the long roll of the Church's 
 worthies, how few there are who have successfiJly 
 carried out this inspired injunction! George Fox 
 and his colleagues are no exception to the general 
 
 * Conybeare andHowson's Translation, Timothy ii. 2-16. 
 
VIEWS OP THE FOUNDERS. 47 
 
 experience. They surveyed the rehgious state of 
 England, and discerned the inability of forms and 
 of outward machinery to give men real piety; they 
 believed themselves to have been enlightened from 
 above, when earthly means had failed ; they perceived 
 with great clearness the difference between piety and 
 its concomitants — between the building itself and the 
 mere scaffolding around it; but they did not see so 
 clearly, that the great Master Builder is usually 
 pleased to employ outward means — what may be 
 compared to the scaffolding — in establishing the 
 temple of true piety in the heart of man. Seeing 
 that God sometimes works immediately by His 
 Spirit, and that He is able always to employ this 
 direct spiritual influence in drawing souls to Him- 
 self, it was argued that it was His will principally 
 to employ this Divine afflatus in nurturing the 
 Christian life, to ihe disparagement -of instrumental 
 and secondary means; and it has been a principal 
 object in the Quaker system, to isolate its members 
 from the influence of aught that was supposed to 
 divert their attention from the inward teachings of 
 this heavenly visitant, even though it might neces- 
 sitate the abnegation of deeply seated elements in 
 the constitution of man's spiritual .nature. 
 
 Had George Fox's mind been less influenced by 
 
48 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 his Puritan training, and been more conversant witli 
 the history of the past, his penetrating intellect would 
 probably have discerned that the attempt to exclude 
 the human reason from the exercise of its legitima,te 
 prerogatives, and to ignore the love of the beautiful 
 in art or song, was not merely to throw away a 
 weapon of remarkable potency in awakening re- 
 ligious sensibilities, but also to curtail the basis on 
 which the Society rested, and to contract that narrow 
 road which the Christian must tread on his heaven- 
 ward journey, to limits straiter than those fixed by 
 omniscient wisdom and revealed to man. In one of 
 his epistles. Fox says, " And if every particular of 
 you know not a principle within which is of God to 
 guide you to wait upon God, ye are still in your own 
 knowledge, which is brutish and sensual "... 
 **and dwelling in that which is pure up to God, it 
 commands your own reason to keep silent and to 
 cast your own thoughts out." * George Fox's strong 
 common sense saved him from some of the practical 
 errors his colleagues fell into; but is not the pre- 
 ceding extract illustrative of the existence of the 
 theory that the operations of the Holy Spirit are 
 facilitated by the entire negation of the human 
 reason? Whereas (as it appears to the writer), the 
 * George Fox's Epistles, p. 18. 
 
VIEWS OF THE TOUNDERS. 49 
 
 true position is, that the human reason, depraved 
 by sin, is renewed and enlightened, and sanctified by 
 the inshining of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 How came it, when musing on the sacred volume, 
 for days and weeks, "in hollow trees and lonesome 
 places," that this great man did not perceive that 
 the Apostle Paul presented an eminent example 
 of the sanctification of a powerful intellect to the 
 service of God; — by what oversight did he fail 
 to recognize, that those same reasoning faculties 
 which, in the unconverted Saul of Tarsus, opposed 
 and blasphemed the truth, when changed by the 
 power of Divine grace, were mighty in argument 
 with Jew or Greek, whether in impassioned oratory, 
 or in logical written discourses, skilfully using my- 
 thological literature, and introducing appropriate 
 allusions to surrounding circumstances ? No Chris- 
 tian will doubt the ability of Him " with whom all 
 things are possible," always to employ immediate 
 spiritual influence, in preference to secondary or 
 instrumental means ; but the question is not whether 
 God has the power, but whether it is His will so to- 
 act; and this can be ascertained only by an appeal* 
 to revelation and experience. It is the high privilege 
 of the Christian to know his way "ordered of the 
 Lord in all things ; " but those who most fully realize 
 
50 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 the truth of this in their own experience, are also 
 those who recognize the existence of clear and sig- 
 nificant laws in the method of God's spiritual govern- 
 ment. In the words of a great liviag philosopher, 
 " the conditions of existence, not less thaia the matter 
 and form, are from God ; " * and a clearly manifested 
 " condition" of the Divine government, is what may- 
 be termed the economy of power that is displayed in 
 His dealings with men. When personally on earth, 
 the Lord Jesus did not employ miraculous agency 
 when the ordinary powers of nature were compe- 
 tent to attain the required result; "there was no 
 exhibition of things monstrous, there were no con- 
 trarieties to the order of nature, there was nothing 
 prodigious, there was nothing grotesq^ue. " f Just so 
 is it in the material world: God's creative energy 
 is in constant exercise, alike in the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms; without it the labour of the 
 husbandman were in vain: but that man would 
 be rightly regarded as insane, who in order to 
 give full scope to this creative energy left his 
 fields imcultivated. In like manner the operations 
 of the Holy Spirit in the human heart, constantly 
 progress harmoniously and consentaneously with 
 
 * Natural History of Enthusiasm, p. 55. 
 f Restoration of Belief, p. 231. 
 
PnSTE AETSj ETC. 51 
 
 the exercise of the mental faculties. God does not 
 supersede His own works ; on the contrary, He en- 
 joins the active healthy play of the human reason, 
 and to those so using it, is best known the limited 
 range of its powers when exercised on the relations 
 of man to his Creator, and they most gratefully 
 accept of that omnipotent strength, which is merci- 
 fiiUy granted in consideration of man's need. An 
 unhealthy disparagement of outward means in the 
 culture of the religious life, showed itself during the 
 lives of the founders of Quakerism; and we shall 
 hereafter see that, as counteracting influences were 
 withdrawn, it was still further developed in a manner 
 most prejudicial to the health of the body. 
 
 The attitude assumed by the JFriends towards the 
 fine arts, furnishes another evidence (as it appears 
 to the writer) of their imperfect apprehension of the 
 dignity of all the feelings and emotions, originally 
 implanted by the Creator in the constitution of man. 
 George Fox writes, " I was moved also to cry 
 against all sorts of music," for it "burdened the pure 
 life." * " The Quaker," says Bancroft, " distrusts the 
 fine arts, they are so easily perverted to purposes of 
 superstition and the delight of the senses." f Whilst 
 
 * Fox's Jmamal, p. 25. 
 
 t History of U. S., Bancroft, vol. ii p. 606. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 the primitive Quakers did not purpose absolutely to 
 banish these pursuits from the homes of themselves 
 and their successors, they so far restrained the 
 development of the aesthetic element, that acting 
 in conjunction with the general subjective character 
 of the system, Quakerism became (what the French 
 denominate) a SpicialiU, without the elastic, adap- 
 tative qualities, which fit Christianity for every tribe 
 of men, from the impassible matter-of-fact Dutch- 
 man, to the sensuous, impulsive Negro. Here, we 
 imagine, lies the secret why Quakerism has made 
 no progress amongst the aboriginal tribes it has 
 befriended — amongst the Negroes whose liberties it 
 has struggled for — or (with trivial exceptions) any- 
 where beyond the limits of the Anglo-Saxon family ; 
 and also why it has not proved a congenial home to 
 that large class of persons whose characters are 
 rather emotional, than intellectual or reflective. 
 
 Perhaps, from its foundation, the difference be- 
 tween the leaders of the Society of Friends and 
 other Christians, respecting Holy Scripture, existed 
 more in language and manner of expression than 
 in substance and reality. Very many of the early 
 Quakers, as is evident from their writings, were 
 deeply versed in the inspired volume and most highly 
 prized it ; though they rebelled against the legal 
 
HOLY SCRIPTURE. 53 
 
 statute-book liglit in which it was held by the 
 Puritans, and not very unfrequently used by them 
 whilst in power as a shield for cruelty and intole- 
 rance. The controversy, whether the Scriptures 
 be the primary rule of faith and practice or the 
 secondary, is of smaller importance than appears at 
 first sight, when the defenders of the latter position 
 heartily admit that they "do look upon them" (the 
 Scriptures) as the only fit outward judge of contro- 
 versies among Christians, and that whatsoever doctrine 
 is contrary unto their testimony may therefore justly 
 be regarded as false. And " for our own parts," adds 
 Barclay, " we are very willing that all our doctrines 
 and practices be tried by them; which we never re- 
 fused, nor ever shall, in all controversies with our 
 adversaries, as the judge and test. We shall also be 
 very willing to admit it as a positive, certain maxim, 
 that whatsoever any do, pretending to the Spirit, 
 which is contrary to the Scriptures, be accounted and 
 reckoned a delusion of the devil." * The controversy 
 that has been maintained on this point is analogous to 
 one we may imagine by way of hypothesis between 
 two Englishmen — as to whether the three estates of 
 this realm, or the laws they enact, shall be considered 
 the primary rule of faith and practice in things civil. 
 * Barclay, Prop, on Scriptures, p. 80. 
 
54 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 It appears to us that the practical consequences difier 
 hardly at all, hetween the man who obeys the laws as 
 his rule, and he who holds the more comprehensive 
 theory, that whilst doing nothing contrary to the lams, 
 he yet must revere the Queen, Lords, and Commons 
 that enacted them more than the laws themselves. 
 It was the reaction against the judicial reception of 
 'the Bible by the Puritans, that made the early Friends 
 so emphatic in aiSrming that " the Spirit which gave 
 forth the Scriptures was greater than the Scriptures." 
 But when the Puritans, as a party, were extinct, the 
 result of having strongly pushed this doctrine was 
 felt injuriously by the Society of Friends. A tradi- 
 tional mode of expression was maintained towards the 
 Bible, no longer called for, that occasioned some te 
 think it a part of their profession to avoid the regular 
 daily reading of Holy Scripture. The Bible is not 
 read in meetings for divine worship; and inasmuch 
 as the careless and indifferent will ever neglect its 
 sacred contents, when no systematic arrangements 
 exist for bringing them formally under notice, either 
 in the public assemblies for the worship of God, or in 
 social gatherings for the like purpose, it may easily 
 be understood how considerable was the deficiency of 
 intelligent scriptiiral knowledge which existed in the 
 Society preyieos tothe close of last century; at which 
 
DISCrPLINE. 55 
 
 period the daily family reading of the inspired volume 
 was recommemded by London Yearly Meeting, and 
 this practice has been generally adopted. The de- 
 fective acquaintance with Scripture has been officially 
 recognized as a chief occasion of the desolating here- 
 sies which, within the last sixty years, have swept 
 away so many thousand members in Ireland and 
 America. 
 
 Connected with this branch of our subject is the 
 working of the Quaker system of " Discipline," 
 or church government. George Fox commenced its 
 definite organization in 1667, and devoted much 
 time and labour to its elaboration during the re- 
 mainder of- his life. The report of the " religious 
 census" of 1851 puts in a few sentences the main 
 features of the system.- " The whole community of 
 Friends is modelled somewhat on the Presbyterian 
 system. Three gradations of meetings or synods — 
 monthly, quarterly, and yearly — administer the afi^irs 
 of the Society, including in their supervision matters 
 both of spiritual discipline and secular poKcy. The 
 monthly meetings, composed of all the congregations 
 within a definite circuit, judge of the fitness of new 
 candidates for membership, supply certificates to such 
 as move to other districts, choose fit persons to be 
 elders, to watch over the ministry, attempt the refer- 
 
56 QtlAKEEISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 mation or pronounce the expulsion of all such as walk 
 disorderly^ and generally seek to stimulate the mem- 
 bers to religious duty. They also make provision for 
 the poor of the Society, and secure the education of 
 their children. Overseers are also appointed to assist 
 in the promotion of these objects. At monthly meet- 
 ings also marriages are sanctioned previous to their 
 solemnization at a meeting for vrorship. Several 
 monthly meetings compose a quarterly meeting, to 
 which they forward general reports of their condition, 
 and at which appeals are heard from their decisions. 
 The yearly meeting holds the same relative position 
 to the quarterly meetings that the latter do to the 
 monthly meetings, and has the general superintendence 
 of the Society in a particular country."* George Fox 
 says that his object in the organization of this system 
 of church government was "the promotion of piety 
 and virtue." These are general terms; and there 
 can be no doubt that he foresaw several important 
 ends that might be attained by these frequent meet- 
 ings for other purposes than religious worship, as 
 the efficient relief of the poor, the succouring of the 
 persecuted and down-trodden, as well as the several 
 matters mentioned in the preceding extract, and others 
 which we shall hereafter consider ; but perhaps more 
 * Beport of Religious Census, p. 65. 
 
DISCIPLINE. 57 
 
 powerful than any other consideration that influenced 
 his mind, was the perception he had of the necessity 
 that existed for putting a restraint on the proceedings 
 of some injudicious but ardent followers. This may 
 be inferred from his own writings, and the strenuous 
 opposition offered to the establishment of " Meetings 
 for Discipline " by a nuinber of the more enthusiastic 
 spirits in the Society is strong corroborative testimony. 
 The first effect the " Discipline " had on the body at 
 large, was (if we may use so mechanical a simile) not 
 unlike that occasioned by the addition of a fly-wheel 
 to a powerful but irregularly acting machine — there 
 was some loss of power, but more than an equivalent 
 gain in the greater regularity of action induced. A 
 check was put on the proceedings of parties whose 
 zeal outran their knowledge. At the period of which 
 we now write, " membership," in the modern sense of 
 the term, was unknown in the Society. Fox's views 
 were far more extensive than the mere founding of a 
 sect : as before remarked, he aimed at nothing less 
 than the reformation of the entire Church : thus, in his 
 Epistles he hardly appears to address the Friends as a 
 sectional body of Christians, they are "the children 
 of light, in scom by the world called Quakers," " the 
 church of God," &c. Thus wishing to include all 
 within its pale, it would have been contrary to the 
 
58 QUAKEEISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 genius of primitive Quakerism to have made a definite 
 statement as to who were " members " and who were 
 not : the habitual attendance at thek religious meetings 
 was the only popular test which indicated, who were 
 to be regaaeded as " Friends ; " and persons so attend- 
 ing, of every shade of religious experience and of all 
 degrees of earnestness, were blended together, though 
 the incessant persecution which attended, the Society 
 in nearly all parts of the country, for the first forty years 
 of its history, generally prevented the long-continued 
 adhesion of the lukewarm and indifierent. Widely 
 diifering from the promiscuous gatherings for divine 
 worship were the first "Meetings for Discipline:" 
 they were not popular assemblies ; chUdren and 
 young people did not sit in therri. as they do now ; 
 but " two or three true and faith&l Friends " from 
 each particular meeting constituted the monthly 
 meetings ; and George Fox is still more precise in 
 defining fit constituents for the quarterly meetings, 
 which, says he,, are to be made up "of weighty 
 seasoned, and substantial Friends, that understand 
 the business of the church ; for no unruly or unsea- 
 soned person should come there, nor indeed to the 
 monthly meeting, but those who are single-hearted, 
 seasoned, and honest." * To these meetings ministers 
 * Pox's Epistles, p. 290i 
 
DISCIPLINE. 59 
 
 (if personally imknown in the parts thej wished to 
 visit) must apply for certificates, " to prevent any 
 bad spirits that may scandalize honest men." In 
 examining into the actual business transacted in these 
 church meetings, as we may style them, it is remark- 
 able how large a part of it was connected with the 
 reUef of the persecuted — of those ia prison, or their 
 destitute families. The early Friends merit a passing 
 tribute of high praise, for their affectionate care of one 
 another in those dark days of griading persecution. 
 A recent author * has pointed out, that one effect of 
 the severe persecutions of the Friends in the seven- 
 teenth century was largely to call out their charitable 
 feelings for one another, and so to induce the for- 
 mation of a most intimate fellowship between different 
 classes of persons. The liberal extension of pecuniary 
 aid to the sufferers by their richer brethren appears 
 to have operated as a temptation to some designing 
 parties to join themselves to the Quaker community, 
 even in time of persecution, through sordid, motives, 
 whilst they contrived to escape the sufferings incident 
 to such a profession. It, is an interesting coincidence 
 that a similar abuse is mentioned by historians of the 
 primitive Church, These oircTMnstaaces paved the 
 way for the introduction of a system by which 
 * W. Tanner's EectMres, p. 77. 
 
60 QUAKEEISM : PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 every poor member receives pecuniary relief in 
 case of need, and education for his cHldren at the 
 expense of the meeting in which he resides, or has 
 " a settlement." The rules for determining this set- 
 tlement are of a precise and somewhat complicated 
 character. So early as 1693, mention is made in 
 the Yearly Meeting's Epistle of poor " Friends " 
 coming to reside in London from the country dis- 
 tricts and being burdensome to the metropolitan 
 meetings.* We here notice the origin of the diffi- 
 culty more largely felt afterwards, when charitable 
 feelings were colder, as to who were the parties 
 equitably chargeable with the duty of maintaining 
 the poor, when such changed their residence, and 
 moved to another meeting. The " Rules of Settle- 
 ment " were adopted by the Yearly Meeting to meet 
 the different emergencies. It is indicative of the 
 trouble imposed on that assembly by these questions, 
 that in 1740 it bound itself by a regulation, not to en- 
 tertain any proposition for altering these rules, unless 
 brought before it by a distinct minute of a quar- 
 terly meeting, t The influence of this legal adminis- 
 tration of the Church's charity to its poor has not 
 been unattended with injurious results. In some 
 
 * Yearly Meeting Epistles, p. 81. 
 f jRvles of Discipline, p. 237. 
 
RELIEF OF THE POOE. 61 
 
 parts of the country it is but too evident, that during 
 the eighteenth century the rehef of the poor was 
 regarded much more in the light of a duty (to use a 
 mild expression) than of a privilege ; and it is possible 
 that the fact of a person being indigent, may sometimes 
 have . weighed to his disadvantage, when a monthly 
 meeting has been deliberating as to his reception into 
 membership. But much more deeply marked has 
 been the influence of this systematic relief of the 
 poor on themselves, than on their benefactors. When 
 a family of children have received a boarding-school 
 education at the expense of the Society, it has not 
 unfrequently happened that such young persons have 
 been placed in a false position, contracted habits and 
 formed associations unsuited to the circumstances of 
 their family, and, relying on the knowledge tlaat they 
 would be supported, if it came to the worst, have 
 neglected to take such situations and to follow such 
 callings, as their position in life indicated to be appro- 
 priate for them. And this association of " temporal 
 advantage with membership in the Church " has not 
 only acted prejudicially on the Society itself, but 
 has also operated in repellmg the poor from its 
 borders. With that sense of honour that is often 
 found amongst the conscientious poor, we are not 
 surprised to learn from good authorities, that work- 
 
62 QUAKEEISM : PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 ing men are deterred from seeking membership with 
 the Friends hy the fear of being charged with in- 
 terested motives.* 
 
 Returning to the more immediate consideration of 
 the ecclesiastical machinery established by George 
 Fox, the point that attracts our closest attention is 
 its non-aggressive character, being the exact reverse 
 of the organization adopted by John Wesley in the 
 Methodist societies. It is justly remarked by the 
 philosophic exponent of Wesley and Methodism, that 
 
 * In the thirty years 1828-1857, the sum expended by York 
 Quarterly Meeting of Eriends in the relief and maintenance of 
 its poor members was 20,830Z. Us. Gd., or 694Z. per year. The 
 number of members during the period was two thousand four 
 hundred, the payment requiring a contribution of five and nine- 
 pence per year from each member. 
 
 In a return made by the Poor-Law Commissioners to the last 
 session of Parliament, it is stated that during the twenty-four 
 years 1 834-1 8S8, the sum expended in England and Wales for the 
 relief of the poor had averaged six and twopence per year on the 
 estimated population. In Beither case do the 'figures include pay- 
 ments made from charitable endowments, or for other purposes 
 than the relief of the poor. 
 
 In comparing the relief g^ven to members of the Society of 
 Eriends with that obtained from the poor-law union, we may 
 safely assume that, under like circumstances of destitution, the pay- 
 ment made by the Friends would Ije three times greater than that 
 made by the parish officer; and seeing that the contribution made 
 by them is less per head, it follows that the Society of Friends 
 has not more than one-third part of the pauperism which exists 
 in the population at large — ^York Quarterly Meeting fairly repre- 
 senting the circumstances of the entire Society in England and 
 Wales. 
 
DISCrPLTNE. 63 
 
 the ctrganization of that system is " expansive," that 
 of Quakerism " seclusive." We regard this as having 
 been a powerfiil cause of the Society's first stationary, 
 then retrograde condition — one that has been m opera- 
 tion almost from its origin to the present time. To 
 avail ourselves further of the volume just quoted 
 from: "In the Wesleyan community, organization 
 has always had one intention — namely, systematic 
 
 labour No Wesleyan Methodist (when the 
 
 system has had its free course) falls out of notice, or 
 is suffered, to lapse into forgetftdness, or is left an 
 inert fragment, not partaking of the momentum of 
 the mass." Isaac Taylor adds that this organization, 
 " comprehensive in the most absolute sense, as to 
 persons, gifts, talents, and worldly means," is that 
 which has given to Wesleyan Methodism a greater 
 amount of success than has attended "the equally 
 zealous endeavours of other bodies.* f And how 
 
 * Wesley and Methodism, p. 272. 
 
 ■f A pertinent illustration of the effect of this systematic lahour 
 in identifying an individual with the interests of a Church, came 
 under the author's notice during the preparation of the present 
 essay. In the sketch that Thomas Cooper (the author of the 
 Purgatory of Suicides) has been giving, in different towns, during 
 the last few months, of his early history and experience, he 
 stated that when, as a young man, circumstances had attracted 
 him to the Church of England, his union with it was not cemented 
 because they " gave him nothing to do ; " and subsec[uently he 
 was drawn towards the Wesleyans, who furnished him with ample 
 means for the development of his energies. 
 
64 QUAKERISM : PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 widely different is it from the Quaker organization, 
 which assigns hardly any work to a large number of 
 those who attend " Meetings for Discipline." It is 
 only incidentally that the principle of aggression 
 exists there ad; all. The zeal of the individual 
 preachers under the guidance of the Holy Spirit is 
 the sole incentive to " Missionary enterprise " — the 
 intention or wish to engage in such a service — the 
 " concern " of the minister (to use the conventional 
 phrase) — is laid before the meeting, and if approved 
 of, a certificate of unity and approbation is granted. 
 When the preacher's views are cordially entered into, 
 the possession of the Church's sympathy and prayers 
 is encouraging and sustaining; and at the time the dis- 
 cipline was established, when, in spite of the number 
 of ministers incarcerated in all the gaols of England, 
 others remained in sufficient numbers to continue 
 their travels and their preachings- in every part of the 
 British Isles, in Holland, Germany, and other parts 
 of Em-ope, in the West Indies, and in the North 
 American colonies, not to mention embassies for 
 the spiritual enlightenment of the Sultan Mahomet, 
 or the occupant of the Papal Chair — at this period 
 the influence of the disciplinary meetings in regu- 
 lating, without repressing, the zeal of the early 
 preachers was useful ; but the period of fervour 
 
DISCrPLINE. 65 
 
 and of glowing zeal did not continue more than 
 fifty years. In the Society of Friends the execu- 
 tive power, as already stated, rests in the monthly 
 meetings — not in the central body; and conse- 
 quently neither the evUs nor the benefits of a 
 system of centralized authority have been felt. 
 History proves that such a system is best fitted for 
 the prosecution of an active propagandism : the 
 Quaker poKty is the reverse of this, hence a 
 main reason of its failure as an instrumentality for 
 obtaining proselytes. 
 
 This is not the place to review the respective 
 merits of a seclusive or of an expansive form of 
 church government, nor to consider which most 
 accords with the spirit of Cln-istianity. We are 
 aware many of the Friends would argue, that it 
 was a chief recommendation of their system, that 
 the machinery ceases to work when the life and 
 spirit, which should be the main-spring, cease to 
 exist. Into this question it is without our pro- 
 vince to enter — we merely draw attention to the 
 fact that the ecclesiastical polity of the Society is- 
 not calcrJated to widen the sphere of its influence j 
 it does not afiect the world without, and so is power- 
 less as a proselytizing engine. 
 
 Yet it must not be overlooked, that whilst this 
 
66 QUAKERISM : PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 has been the case for a lengthened period, their 
 founder did contemplate a wider range of service 
 for '^meetings for discipline " than they have ac- 
 tually occupied. He intended them to have been 
 agencies for spreading the doctrines of the Friends, 
 and he instituted periodic gatherings in different 
 parts of the country, termed " Circular Yearly- Meet- 
 ings," having some points of resemblance with the 
 Methodist " camp meetiags " of a later date, at 
 which great numbers of people — sometimes counted, 
 by thousands — were assembled from extensive dis- 
 tricts of country ; the services lasted from one to 
 three days, and were conducted by the most able 
 and popularr ministers — "Public Friends," as they 
 are oddly denominated in the antique records of 
 these proceedings. Not mafr.equently, too, the quar- 
 terly meetings partook of a Hke character: one 
 day being devoted to religious meetings with the 
 Friends and the general public united, whilst on 
 the succeeding day the affairs of the. Society would 
 be transacted ia a select assembly, constituted as 
 already described. But as the aggressive spirit 
 passed away, these provisions for acting on the 
 masses of ihe papulation were abused, fell into, dis- 
 repute, and were discontinued. The early "meet- 
 ings for discipline" were also intended to afford op- 
 
CIRCULAR YEARLY MEETINGS, ETC. 67 
 
 portunities for the exercise of the gift of " teaching " 
 by those Friends who did not speak as ministers ; 
 and we learn from Wright's History of Friends in 
 Ireland, and from other sources, how varied and 
 useful were the services rendered to the Society and 
 especially to its yomiger members, sometimes by the 
 establishment of meetings for the reading of religious 
 books, by frequent social visits, by deputations from 
 monthly and quarterly meetings to the homes of their 
 members, and by other means. Yery much of this 
 interesting phase of the Society's internal economy- 
 passed away in the " middle ages " of its history— 
 at the very time, let it be observed, when the oral 
 instruction imparted in " meetings for worship " was 
 greatly diminished, from the fewness of preachers 
 as compared with the previous- epoch. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Numerical strength of the Society of Friends in 1680 — Its pro- 
 portion to the general population — Emigration — Number of 
 Friends in 1800, 1847, and 1856. 
 
 "Important lessons with reference to the physical and moral 
 condition of any people, are derived from the investigation of those 
 great events in human life, which are the subjects of registration, 
 viz. births, marriages, and deaths," — Samuel Tuice. 
 
 The death of George Fox marks the close of the 
 first epoch in Quaker history. Here, then, we pause 
 to inquire what was the number of persons who had 
 accepted his exposition of Christian truth, and iden- 
 tified themselves with the new Society. 
 
 The essential conditions of the inquiry preclude the 
 attainment of a result arithmetically exact. No attempt 
 at defining membership with the Society of Friends 
 was made until nearly a century after its origin; 
 previous to that time, attendance at its meetings 
 for worship was the popular test for determining 
 religious profession. The number of persons so far 
 
NUBIEEICAL STEENGTH IN 1680. 69 
 
 " convinced " as sometimes to attend the meetings 
 of the Friends, and to unite with them in par- 
 ticular efforts — as in opposing tithes, church-rates, 
 military service, &c. — was very large ; and so early 
 as 1659 petitions were presented to Parliament for 
 the abolition of tithes, signed by about fifteen thou- 
 sand men and upwards of seven thousand women. 
 
 The Society does not appear at any time to have 
 ascertained officially the number of persons in pro- 
 fession with it, though from its origin it has kept 
 careful records of births, deaths, and marriages;* 
 but two statements, made in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury by contemporary authors, throw some light 
 upon the question. In the Snake in the Grass, a 
 volume published by a hostile anonymous author in 
 1696, it is incidentally mentioned that "the Quakers 
 are not fewer, by the lowest computation, than one 
 hundred thousand here in England."! In Dal- 
 rymple's Memoirs, we find that when "King Wil- 
 liam (III.) was engaged in his project of reconciling 
 the religious differences of England, he was at great 
 pains to find out the proportions between church- 
 men, dissenters, and papists." In the reports pre- 
 sented to the King on this subject, the total number 
 of Protestant nonconformists is given at one hundred 
 
 * See Note 1 at the end of chapter, p. 77. 
 t Snake in the Grass, 2nd edition, p. 245. 
 
70 QUAKEEISM: PAST AND 'PEESENT. 
 
 and eight thousand six hundred and seventy-six 
 above the age of sixteen (double that number, in- 
 cluding children, it is stated). Unfortunately, the 
 numbers of the different denominations are not 
 specified; but excluding some insignificant sects, 
 it is generally stated that the four chief bodies of 
 dissenters, " the Presbyterians, the Anabaptists, the 
 Independents, and Quakers, were about equal in num- 
 bers."* This would give about fifty thousand as the 
 number of the Friends, one-half less than the state- 
 ment of the author previously quoted. The Snake 
 in the Grrass was written with the desire to excite 
 persecution ; and it is probable the wish to alarm 
 the pubhc mind, induced the author to exaggerate 
 the real number of his opponents; on the other hand, 
 it is not unhkely that from the returns furnished 
 to William III. being compiled by parties vrishful 
 to magnify the strength of the National Church, 
 and to depreciate that of dissenters, the numbers 
 of the latter class are under-stated. A close exami- 
 nation of the tables, and a comparison of them with 
 other sources of information, convince us that this 
 is the case, especially in the ecclesiastical province 
 of York.^ The Society's register of marriages'f 
 solemnized in its meeting-houses, will help us to 
 
 * Dalrymple's Memoirs, Appendix, chap. i. part il. p. 39. 
 t See Note 2, p. 77. J See Note 3, p. 77. 
 
NUMERICAL STRENGTH IN 1680. 71 
 
 estimate the respective value of these conflicting 
 statements. 
 
 Prom the subjoined tables,* procured from the 
 records of the Society at Devonshire House, London, 
 it will be observed that the greatest number of mar- 
 riages reported as solemnized in Friends' meeting- 
 houses, was in the ten years 1670-79 ; averaging 
 282 per annum. The effect of the great emigration 
 to America becomes apparent immediately after- 
 wards. Admitting that one marriage per year oc- 
 curred amongst 140 f persons, it might be supposed 
 that 40,000 (the rough result of multiplying 282 
 by 140) represented the number of the Friends in 
 England and Wales in 1680. We believe, however, 
 this number to be considerably below the reality. 
 Jintire reliance cannot be placed on these early re- 
 cords ; some are known to be lost, and a scrutinizing 
 examination of the figures f convinces us that the 
 returns from some districts must be incomplete — a 
 conclusion that is confirmed by a comparison of the 
 numbers of marriages reported by the different coun- 
 ties, with the numbers of signatures to the women's 
 petition of 1659 within similar geographical limits. 
 It is also :known that many persons who worshipped 
 
 * See Notes 5 and 6, pp. 80, 81. f 'S'ee Note 3, p. 77. 
 X See Notes 1, 6, and 9, pp. 77, 81, and 83. 
 
72 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 with the Friends, and in the main held their reli- 
 gious principles, shrunk from having their marriages 
 solemnized in a manner which left the legal validity 
 of these unions doubtful, and exposed character and 
 estate to the painful consequences of such doubt. 
 Makincr allowance for these and other sources of 
 error, we believe that an addition of from fifteen 
 to twenty thousand must be made to the forty 
 thousand already mentioned, in order to give the 
 correct total of persons "professing" with the Friends 
 in England and Wales in the year 1680. Statistics 
 are regarded so much in the light of an infliction 
 by the popular mind, that we will not detain the 
 reader by enlarging on the different items of evi- 
 dence that might be adduced in support of the 
 position, that there were not fewer than sixty 
 thousand persons in England and Wales " of the 
 persuasion of the people called Quakers," at a 
 period somewhat anterior to that of George Fox's 
 death.* When we remember that four thousand two 
 hundred Friends, some accounts say five thousand, 
 were in prison at once in 1 660 (mostly adult men), or 
 examine into the number of oflBcial documents printed 
 for circulation, or into the numbers of meeting-houses 
 and burial-grounds, or notice how numerous were 
 * See Note 9, p. 83. 
 
EMIGEATION. 73 
 
 Quaker sailors (sometimes so many in bondage in 
 Algiers as to constitute a considerable sized meeting), 
 or read the repeated statements of " the great spread 
 of truth" in the early journals, — at times nearly 
 " the whole village " or district " coming to be con- 
 vinced," — we see how very large was the number of 
 the Friends then living in England. If an addition 
 of six thousand * be made on account of Ireland and 
 Scotland, it will give us a total of about sixty-six 
 thousand people as the entire numerical strength of 
 the Society, in Great Britain and Ireland. Esti- 
 mating the entire population at eight millions and a 
 half, it may be stated in popular language, that one 
 person in one hundred and thirty professed with the 
 Friends in the latter part of the seventeenth century. 
 In considering the causes purely statistical which 
 were continually reducing this large number through- 
 out the eighteenth century, emigration is an item of 
 considerable importance. The attractions offered to 
 the persecuted, by the colonies of North America, 
 were great, and many availed themselves of the 
 opportunity to escape from their sufferings in Eng- 
 land to the free settlements of Pennsylvania, New 
 Jersey, &c. The drain on the English Society from 
 this cause was continuous from the settlement of 
 * See Note 10, p. 84. 
 
74 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 West Jersey in 1676, to the breaking out of the 
 American war in 1775. Aboiit five hundred Friends 
 per annum are reported as emigrating between 1676 
 and 1700.* To what ejrtent this rate of emigration 
 was maintained during the next eighty years has not 
 been ascertained, but it is known to have been very- 
 considerable. Bearing this fact in mind, and its 
 connection with the state of the Society throughout 
 the eighteenth century, and the constant defection 
 from its ranks that it experienced from differing 
 and sometimes opposing causes, it is hardly matter 
 of surprise that in 'the year 1800, its numbers were 
 only one-half of what they had been one hundred 
 and twenty years previously. At the beginning of 
 the present century the number of members in 
 England and Wales appears to have been 19,800.t 
 The "non-members" (judging from the proportion 
 of births and deaths recorded of this class $) were 
 about 8,000 ; Scotland and Ireland may be estimated 
 (members and others) at 4,500, giving the total 
 numerical strength of the Society in these islands, 
 in the year 1800, at 32,000 persons — about one 
 Friend to every 4t70 of the general population. 
 
 * Appendix to Thurnam's Statistics, p. 12. 
 
 t See Note 14, p. 86. 
 
 X See Notes 4 and 7, pp. 79 and 82. 
 
PRESENT NUMERICAL STRENGTH. 75 
 
 A constant loss of members is inevitable to every 
 Church, from parties voluntarily resigning their con- 
 nection with it, and from others lapsing into open 
 and flagrant sin. Losses of this character cannot 
 be altogether prevented by any arrangements, nor 
 by a high degree of Christian vitality, but in a 
 healthy commvmity they will generstlly be more than 
 counterbalanced by the accession of new converts. 
 No siich encouraging condition of affairs has been 
 enjoyed by the Society of Friends during the present 
 century. Upwards of 8,400 persons have resigned 
 their membership or been disowned, and this loss 
 having only been compensated for by the introduc- 
 tion of '6,000 persons, through convincement, regis- 
 tration of non-members, readmissions, &c., a melan- 
 choly balance of 2,400 remains on the debtor side 
 of the Society's balance sheet.* 
 
 Emigration amongst the Friends during the last 
 fifty years has not been equal in proportion to that 
 of the population at large f — we estimate it at 700 
 persons ; but, occurring in a community in which the 
 deaths were exceeding the births, | its influence is 
 more evident than where the population is redundant. 
 
 The "rehgious census" of 1851 naturally recalls 
 
 * See Note 11, p. 84. t *«« ^0*^ 13, p. 86. 
 
 X See Note 12, p. 86. 
 
76 QTJAKEKISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 the mind to the "religious census" of William the 
 Third. How vast the change that has taken place 
 in the religious aspect of England within the hundred 
 and sixty years ! New churches, counting their ad- 
 herents by hundreds of thousands, appear in the 
 tables of 1851, which were unknown in 1695. Most 
 of the old bodies, the Church of England, the Roman 
 Catholics, the Independents, the Baptists, have in- 
 creased their numbers prodigiously ; the Society of 
 Friends alone has retrograded, and to an extent 
 of considerably more than one-half. In 1856 the 
 number of the Friends in England and Wales 
 (" members ") appears to have been 14,530.* 
 Adding 7,000 for non-members, and 4,000 for all, 
 either in membership or profession, in Ireland, &c., 
 we shall have a total, short of 26,000 persons in 
 the United Kingdom, representing the entire nume- 
 rical strength of the Society of Friends at the 
 present time; e(juivalent to about one person in 
 eleven hundred of the general population, as con- 
 trasted with one in one hundred and thirty in 1680.t 
 * See Note 14, p. 86. f See Note 15, p. 88. 
 
77 
 
 NOTES ON CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Note 1. 
 It was not till 1777 that the registration of births, deaths, and 
 marriages, was placed under the supervision of quarterly meet- 
 ings ; previous to that time the registration depended on the indi- 
 vidual and somewhat varying action of monthly and particular 
 meetings. Many of the records previous to this time must have 
 perished, the books having been kept at private houses, and much 
 irregularity having necessarily prevailed in times of persecution, 
 as well as in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, through 
 the lax condition of the Society. 
 
 Note 2. 
 In the returns for the ecclesiastical province of York, the 
 total number of dissenters (including children) is set down at 
 30,150 ; from the number of their marriages solemnized in York- 
 shire (see note 6, p. 81) it is evident there cannot have been 
 fewer than 5,000 Quakers in that county alone at the end of the 
 seventeenth century ; and as they were exceedingly numerous 
 throughout the North of England, it is incredible that there 
 should have been only 30,000 dissenters of all sects, where one 
 body alone must have approached that number. 
 
 Note 3. 
 In employing the Society's registry of marriages for the pur- 
 pose of ascertaining the number of its members at any particular 
 period, it is needful to keep in mind certain accompanying facts 
 which affect the deductions. For the first hundred years of the 
 Society's history, all attenders of its stated meetings for divine 
 worship were at liberty to solemnize their marriages in its meet- 
 ing-houses, and such marriages were recorded by the monthly 
 
78 QUAKERISM : PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 meetings. It is impossible to ascertain precisely what was the 
 average frequency of marriage at this time, either in the popu- 
 lation at large or amongst the Friends. The i-eturus of the 
 Eegistrar-General give one marriage annually to one hundred and 
 twenty-eight persons in the present population of Great Britain. 
 About the year 1800 one marriage appears to have occurred 
 annually amongst one hundred and fifty Friends ; marriage was 
 probably more frequent ia the earlier period, but taldng into con- 
 sideration the habits of a moral and religious people, the deterring 
 effect of persecution and loss of property, &c., we think that in 
 reckoning one marriage per year amongst each one hundred and 
 forty Friends in the seventeenth century, we shall closely approxi- 
 mate to the facts of the case. In 1 737 the Yearly Meeting attempted 
 to define " membership," by giving at that time special privileges 
 to such, persons as were then recorded as " members," over other 
 attenders of meetings. This arrangement has gradually restricted 
 the limits within which the Society has allowed marriage to be 
 contracted, and it has acted with a continually increasing force. 
 Marriages between Friends and other persons are of such fre- 
 quent occurrence, as to require the number of such marriages 
 to be ascertained and adjusted, when investigating the frequency 
 of marriage in the Society, or the number of its members as indi- 
 cated by the marriage register. No reliable information exists 
 (in an.aocessible shape) as to the number of marriages " contrary 
 to rule" before the present century; but the ascertained expe- 
 rience of the Ackworth scholars warrants the statement, that by 
 adding one-third to the Society's registry of marriages from 1800 
 to 1840, and one-half from 184D to the present time, substantial 
 accuracy will be obtained as regards the general experience 
 of the Society in England and Wales, In comparing this expe- 
 rience with that of the population at large, a striking differ- 
 ence appears. The marriages of Friends (including those solem- 
 nized in a manner " contrary to the rules of the Society ") 
 represent at the present time one marriage annually to one hun- 
 dred and sixty^-three persons, instead' of one ini one hundred andi 
 twenty-eight (as in the general community), being equivalent to 
 four marriages by Friends to five of other persons. This infre- 
 quency of marriage has become increasingly marked during the ■ 
 last twenty or thirty years. 
 
NOTES. 79 
 
 Note 4. 
 
 Table showing the number of Births registered by the Society 
 of Friends in England and Wales: — 
 
 Periods of Ten Years. Births Registered. 
 
 164r— 1659 3,104 
 
 1660—1669 7;262 
 
 1670—1679 9,753 
 
 1680—1689 9,211 
 
 1690—1699 9,130 
 
 1700—1709 9,074 
 
 1710—1719 8,358 
 
 1720—1729 7,354 
 
 1730—1739 6,492 
 
 1740—1749 5,544 
 
 1750—1759 5,578 
 
 1760—1769 6,010 
 
 1770—1779 6,586 
 
 1780—1789 6,817 
 
 1790—1799 6,713 
 
 1800—1809 6,910* 
 
 1810—1819 6,625t 
 
 1820—1829 6,390J 
 
 1830— 1837§ 4,57711 
 
 Total 131,488 
 
 * 4,863 members; 2,047 no«-members. 
 
 ■f 4,331 members; 2,294 reon-members, 
 
 J 3,850 members; 2,540 reon-members. 
 
 § 7J years (equivalent to 6,103 in ten years). 
 
 II 2,922 members; 1,655 nora-members. 
 
80 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 Note 5. 
 
 Table showing the number of Marriages registered by the 
 Society of Friends in England and Wales: — 
 
 Periods of Ten Years. Marriages Registered. 
 
 1640—1659 203 
 
 1660—1669 1,800 
 
 1670—1679 2,820 
 
 1680—1689 2,598 
 
 1690—1699 2,193 
 
 1700—1709 2,221 
 
 1710—1719 1,930 
 
 1720—1729 1,700 
 
 1730—1739 1,255 
 
 1740—1749 1,103 
 
 1750—1759 1,079 
 
 1760—1769 1,272 
 
 1770—1779 1,059 
 
 1780—1789 1,051 
 
 1790—1799 1,026 
 
 1800—1809 955 
 
 1810—1819 834 
 
 1820—1829 864 
 
 1830—1839 847* 
 
 1840—1849 666* 
 
 1850—1855 299*t 
 
 Total 27,775 
 
 " Obtained from a return to the House of Commons, July 6, 
 1857, which gives the number of marriages between Quakers 
 in the year ending June 30, 1838, as 76 ; 1839, 73 ; 1840, 81. 
 In the half-year ending December 31 , 1840, 35. Prom 1841 to 
 1855, the numbers have been — 66, 58, 61, 55, 74, 68, 83, 67, 
 53, 69, 65, 57, 68, 52, 57. 
 
 f Equal to 598 for ten years. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 81 
 
 Note 6. 
 
 Marriages in the Society of Friends, 1650-1779. 
 
 
 
 oi 
 
 OT 
 
 ci 
 
 
 
 at 
 
 a 
 
 
 oJ 
 
 csi 
 
 ■2 
 
 c> 
 
 h^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 (N 
 
 
 
 lO 
 
 to 
 
 t-- 
 
 • a) K 
 
 Quarterly Meetings. 
 
 (J, 
 
 1 
 
 s 
 
 i 
 
 (i, 
 
 3 
 
 i 
 
 gl, 
 
 i 
 
 c^ 
 
 A 
 
 i. 
 
 .511 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 C4 
 
 m 
 
 
 o 
 
 to 
 
 t- 
 
 
 S 
 
 CO 
 
 5 
 
 to 
 
 s 
 
 r- 
 
 t- 
 
 r- 
 
 t- 
 
 *- 
 
 t- 
 
 t- 
 
 
 |§. 
 
 Beds, and Herts. 
 
 1 
 
 25 
 
 35 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 41 
 
 28 
 
 41 
 
 18 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 38 
 
 49 
 
 343 
 
 Berkshire and Oxon. 
 
 1 
 
 62 
 
 116 
 
 126 
 
 83 
 
 83 
 
 97 
 
 101 
 
 52 
 
 49 
 
 64 
 
 59 
 
 30 
 
 922 
 
 Bristol and Somerset 
 
 11 
 
 165 
 
 199 
 
 160 
 
 143 
 
 147 
 
 110 
 
 88 
 
 75 
 
 79 
 
 61 
 
 82 
 
 59 
 
 1,369 
 
 Bndcingham 
 
 2 
 
 34 
 
 90 
 
 71 
 
 66 
 
 25 
 
 29 
 
 23 
 
 19 
 
 13 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 394 
 
 Camt)ridge and Hunt 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 iugdon . 
 
 4 
 
 31 
 
 73 
 
 38 
 
 30 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 20 
 
 12 
 
 267 
 
 Cliesliire and Stafford 
 
 3 
 
 30 
 
 48 
 
 61 
 
 60 
 
 68 
 
 69 
 
 76 
 
 62 
 
 39 
 
 29 
 
 36 
 
 9 
 
 579 
 
 Cornwall . 
 
 6 
 
 31 
 
 26 
 
 26 
 
 23 
 
 34 
 
 29 
 
 19 
 
 27 
 
 19 
 
 23 
 
 22 
 
 6 
 
 291 
 
 Cumberland & North 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 umherland 
 
 17 
 
 86 
 
 87 
 
 77 
 
 88 
 
 71 
 
 55 
 
 68 
 
 60 
 
 47 
 
 75 
 
 66 
 
 48 
 
 836 
 
 Derby and Notts. 
 
 2 
 
 49 
 
 98 
 
 75 
 
 47 
 
 42 
 
 22 
 
 20 
 
 17 
 
 14 
 
 8 
 
 22 
 
 18 
 
 434 
 
 Devonshire 
 
 1 
 
 25 
 
 31 
 
 45 
 
 34 
 
 28 
 
 22 
 
 16 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 244 
 
 Dorset and Hants. 
 
 1 
 
 31 
 
 72 
 
 56 
 
 81 
 
 87 
 
 61 
 
 54 
 
 58 
 
 30 
 
 39 
 
 26 
 
 39 
 
 634 
 
 Durham 
 
 18 
 
 60 
 
 36 
 
 36 
 
 38 
 
 29 
 
 24 
 
 22 
 
 16 
 
 n 
 
 19 
 
 46 
 
 36 
 
 386 
 
 Essex . 
 
 4 
 
 67 
 
 100 
 
 76 
 
 76 
 
 77 
 
 42 
 
 60 
 
 18 
 
 24 
 
 37 
 
 52 
 
 39 
 
 671 
 
 Gloucester and Wilts. 
 
 12 
 
 138 
 
 203 
 
 110 
 
 94 
 
 106 
 
 94 
 
 83 
 
 68 
 
 29 
 
 24 
 
 23 
 
 30 
 
 1,013 
 
 Hereford, Worcester 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 and Wales 
 
 9 
 
 75 
 
 68 
 
 60 
 
 76 
 
 63 
 
 63 
 
 64 
 
 43 
 
 33 
 
 42 
 
 48 
 
 32 
 
 666 
 
 Kent (records imper 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 fed) 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 20 
 
 22 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 9 
 
 111 
 
 Lancashire . 
 
 14 
 
 91 
 
 125 
 
 145 
 
 121 
 
 119 
 
 113 
 
 112 
 
 102 
 
 81 
 
 72 
 
 86 
 
 86 
 
 1,266 
 
 Lincolnshire 
 
 8 
 
 50 
 
 58 
 
 66 
 
 38 
 
 44 
 
 47 
 
 39 
 
 23 
 
 14 
 
 21 
 
 17 
 
 16 
 
 431 
 
 London and Middlesex 
 
 . 2 
 
 171 
 
 485 
 
 666 
 
 483 
 
 479 
 
 395 
 
 316 
 
 196 
 
 187 
 
 169 
 
 179 
 
 164 
 
 3,770 
 
 Norfolk and Norwich 
 
 1 
 
 47 
 
 78 
 
 78 
 
 107 
 
 83 
 
 60 
 
 62 
 
 31 
 
 36 
 
 38 
 
 41 
 
 39 
 
 691 
 
 Northampton 
 
 .2 
 
 22 
 
 34 
 
 30 
 
 19 
 
 21 
 
 20 
 
 2S 
 
 23 
 
 16 
 
 21 
 
 23 
 
 16 
 
 271 
 
 Suffolk 
 
 — 
 
 15 
 
 57 
 
 44 
 
 22 
 
 39 
 
 29 
 
 14 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 11 
 
 22 
 
 21 
 
 280 
 
 Sussex and Surrey 
 
 3 
 
 62 
 
 97 
 
 112 
 
 61 
 
 91 
 
 66 
 
 51 
 
 37 
 
 34 
 
 34 
 
 29 
 
 29 
 
 705 
 
 Warwick, Leicester 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 and Rutland . 
 
 ! 2 
 
 60 
 
 76 
 
 84 
 
 65 
 
 01 
 
 68 
 
 47 
 
 27 
 
 60 
 
 40 
 
 47 
 
 33 
 
 660 
 
 Westmoreland . 
 
 . 24 
 
 72 
 
 66 
 
 82 
 
 71 
 
 69 
 
 103 
 
 79 
 
 83 
 
 91 
 
 50 
 
 53 
 
 52 
 
 894 
 
 Yorkshire . 
 
 . 45 
 
 303 
 
 443 
 
 379 
 
 251 
 
 293 
 
 265 
 
 224 
 
 184 
 
 161 
 
 164 
 
 206 
 
 186 
 
 3,107 
 
 Total 
 
 194 
 
 1800 
 
 2820 
 
 2698 
 
 2 [93 
 
 2221 
 
 1930 
 
 1700 
 
 1255 
 
 1103 
 
 1079 
 
 1272 
 
 1059 
 
 21,224 
 
82 
 
 QUAKERISM : PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 Note 7. 
 
 Table showing fhe number of Deaths registered by the Society 
 of Friends previous to 1849 : — 
 
 Periods of 
 
 Burials 
 
 Begis- 
 
 e tered. 
 
 Periods of 
 
 Burials : 
 
 Mem- 
 
 Non- 
 
 Ten Years. 
 
 Ten Tears. 
 
 Registered. 
 
 bers. 
 
 Members. 
 
 1650—1659 
 
 709 
 
 1750—1759 
 
 6,834, Tiz. : 
 
 6,764 
 
 70 
 
 1660—1669 
 
 6,599 
 
 1760—1769 
 
 7,514 „ 
 
 7,318 
 
 196 
 
 1670—1679 
 
 10,142 
 
 1770—1779 
 
 7,771 „ 
 
 6,899 
 
 872 
 
 1680—1689 
 
 11,24*5 
 
 17807-17S9 
 
 8,161 „ 
 
 6,460 
 
 1,701 
 
 1690—1699 
 
 1.0,657 
 
 17.90—1799 
 
 7,344 „ 
 
 5,675 
 
 1,669 
 
 1700— 1;709 
 
 11,274 
 
 1800—1809 
 
 6,503 „ 
 
 4,875 
 
 lj62S 
 
 1710—1719 
 
 110,876 
 
 1810—1819 
 
 6,298 „ 
 
 4,541 
 
 1,757 
 
 1720—1729 
 
 11,016 
 
 1820—1829 
 
 6,526 „ 
 
 4,436 
 
 2,090 
 
 1730—1.739 
 
 ■8,769 
 
 1830—1839 
 
 6,644 „ 
 
 4j420 
 
 2,224 
 
 1740—1749 ■■ 
 
 7,925 
 
 1840—1849 
 
 5,517 „ 
 
 3i667 
 
 1,850 
 
 
 89,212 
 
 
 69,112 
 
 55j055 
 
 14,057 
 
 \_For the foregoing Table the author is indebted to the courtesy of 
 William Thistletkwaite, of Alderley, near Manchester,} 
 
 Note 8. 
 
 Deaths of Priends (members only) since 1841, taken from the 
 Annual Monitors : — 
 
 1841—2 347 
 
 1842—3 356 
 
 1843—4 342 
 
 1844—5 854 
 
 1845—6 357 
 
 1846—7 398 
 
 1847—8 387 
 
 1848— '9 389 
 
 1849-50 310 
 
 1850—1 327 
 
 1851—2 362 
 
 1852—3 311 
 
 1853 — 4 374 
 
 1854—5 357 
 
 1855—6 287 
 
 1856 — 7 300 
 
 1857—8 318 
 
 Availing ourselves of these figures, and making allowance for 
 defective returns, the deaths of " members," in the first six 
 decades of the present century, would be as follows : — 
 
 1800—09 4,875 
 
 1810—19 4,541 
 
 1820—29 4,436 
 
 1830—39 4,420 
 
 1840—49 3,667 
 
 1850—59 3,311 
 
NOTES. 83 
 
 Note 9. 
 
 From the detailed table of marriages within the limits of 
 the different quarterly meetings (see iSTote 6, p. 81), it will 
 be seen how considerable are the fluctuations in the numbers 
 between contiguous periods — fluctuations which are inexpli- 
 cable except on the supposition of defective records. The pro- 
 portion of names from some counties, appended to the petition 
 of 1659, is strikingly similar to the proportion of marriages 
 recorded as occurring in the same district ; others are as dis- 
 similar; e. g., whilst the names from Lincolnshire in the petition 
 of 1659 are one-tenth of the whole (viz., 782) the proportion of 
 marriages to the total number is about one-fiftieth, and other 
 similar discrepancies might he adduced. In the large quarterly 
 meeting of York, forty-four marriages per year are recorded 
 between 1670-79. Supposing them to have occurred with the 
 frequency before stated, viz., one in one hundred and forty, it 
 gives six thousand one hundred and sixty as the number ot 
 !Friends then residing in that county. At tills time there were 
 fourteen monthly meetings in Yorkshire, seventy-two meeting- 
 houses, and Priends are known to have resided in three hundred 
 towns, villages, or hamlets.* If the above computation be correct 
 (and no allowance has been made for marriages not solemnized in 
 the Friends' meeting-houses), it would assign an average of eighty- 
 five persons to each meeting, and twenty to each locality. If from 
 these numbers we deduct for children and sick persons, it will 
 not leave a larger number of attenders at each meeting-house than 
 might be anticipated. It is stated in the Yearly Meeting's Epistle 
 of 1691, that there were one hundred and fifty-one monthly meet- 
 ings in England and Wales. If the fourteen Yorkshire monthly 
 meetings were of average size, from one-tenth to one-eleventh of 
 the entire Society must have been located in that county. Out of 
 the seven thousand eight hundred Quaker women who signed the 
 petition of 1659, about seven hundred and forty, or one-tenth of 
 the whole, are from Yorkshire. Multiplying six thousand one 
 hundred and sixty by ten, we should attain a result of upwards of 
 sixty thousand as the number of Friends in England and Wales. A 
 like result is obtained by applying the same process to the large 
 
 * Records of York Quarterly Meeting. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 QUAKERISM : PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 quarterly meeting of London and Middlesex. Diversity of prac- 
 tice is known to have existed in different parts of the country, 
 and even in different parts of the same quarterly meeting, as to 
 the degree of " profession " requisite to entitle parties to the 
 solemnization of their marriages at " Meeting," which partially 
 accounts for the apparent rarity of marriage in some districts 
 where the Eriends are known to have been very numerous. 
 
 Note 10. 
 
 The number of meeting-houses in Ireland was nearly the same 
 as in Yorkshire. It is stated in Wright and Rutty's History of 
 Friends in Ireland (p. 158), that the losses of the Eriends in the 
 civil wars of 1689-92 amounted to lOO.OOOZ. The same authority 
 mentions that two thousand copies of an epistle from Leinster Pro- 
 vince Meeting, were printed for distribution amongst the Irish 
 Eriends. 
 
 Note 11. 
 
 We are unable to present a complete statement of the number 
 of persons who, since the year 1800, have entered the Society 
 other than by birth, or the number of those who have been 
 expelled from it. We do, however, possess sufilcient data to 
 establish the main facts of the case, and to furnish an approxi- 
 mate estimate without much risk of serious error. 
 
 The periodical returns made to the Yearly Meeting of persons 
 admitted into membership on the ground of convinoement, 
 present, since 1800, an average of about fifty per year. The 
 aggregate number to the close of 1856 was two thousand seven 
 hundred and eight. To this number must be added such persons 
 as are reinstated in membership after disownment, and also the 
 children and young persons who are admitted on the ground of 
 connection with the Society through their immediate relatives. 
 The number who enter in this manner varies so greatly in the 
 several monthly meetings, from the dififerent views entertained 
 by their members as to the conditions of church fellowship, and 
 of the benefit or danger of such admissions, as to prevent the 
 feeling of entire confidence in any estimate drawn from limited 
 
NOTES. 
 
 85 
 
 experience. We possess returns from ten monthly meetings, 
 situated in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Gloucester, Wilts, Somerset, 
 and Essex, and including, with a slight exception, a period from 
 1800 to 1850. The average numher of members in these meet- 
 ings was about three thousand, and their circumstances are so 
 varied as to give them somewhat of a representative character 
 The resignations and disownments in these ten monthly meetings 
 amount to nearly fourteen hundred, the reinstatements and admis- 
 sions (from every source) do not reach one thousand. Estimating 
 these monthly meetings as forming one-sixth part of the Society 
 in England and Wales, and their experience as an average one, 
 we have disclosed through these returns the diminution of two 
 thousand four hundred members by the excess of disownments 
 over admissions. The correctness of this estimate is confirmed 
 by placing in connection with it the ascertained experience of 
 Ackworth scholars drawn from all parts of England. Out of 
 fifteen hundred and eighty-seven individuals, respecting whom 
 information has been obtained, and who left the school between 
 1800 and 1840, it was found at the close of 1843 that nine hundred 
 and thirty-seven were then members of the Society, and six 
 hundred and fifty had been separated from it — three hundred 
 and eleven of them for having married contrary to its rules, and 
 three hundred and thirty-nine on other grounds. 
 
 Erom the data here enumerated, and from other sources, we 
 believe the subjoined statement presents a substantially accurate 
 representation of the real experience of the Society from 1800 to 
 1856, viz.: — 
 
 United to the Society by 
 convincement, as re- 
 ported to the Yearly 
 Meeting 2,708 
 
 Eeinstatements and ad- 
 missions of minors — 
 estimate, based on 
 the experience of ten 
 monthly meetings ... 3,292 
 
 Balance, being the ex- 
 cess of disownments, 
 &c., over admissions 2,400 
 
 8,400 
 
 Resignations and dis- 
 ownments, estimated 
 by the experience of 
 ten monthly meetings, 
 Ackworth scholars, 
 &C 8,400 
 
 8,400 
 
86 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 Note 12. 
 
 In the ten years 1800 to 1809, the births and burials of "mem- 
 bers " in England and Wales were singularly equal in number, 
 being 4,863 of the former, and 4,875 of the latter. In the next 
 decade, the burials were about two hundred in excess of the 
 births ; and in the following one (1820 to 1829) they were nearly 
 five hundred. On the termination of the Society's registry in 
 1837, the total excess of burials over births in the last twenty- 
 seven and a half years, was twelve hundred and thirty-one. The 
 Registrar-General's report of the number of marriages recorded 
 by the Friends since that time, indicates the progressive growth of 
 this excess ; but taking it as continuing to the close of 1856 at the 
 same ratio as from 1820 to 1837, which is clearly below the reality, 
 it gives two thousand three hundred and thirty-six as the diminu- 
 tion of members in England and Wales from the excess of deaths 
 over births since the year 1800. 
 
 Note 13. 
 
 Out of fifteen hundred, and fifty Ackworth scholars who left the 
 school between 1800-1840, and who are reported alive in 1843, it 
 was found that one hundred and seventy-one, or every ninth indi- 
 vidual, had emigrated. From the youthful age of many of the 
 scholars in 1843, a considerable addition must be made to this 
 number for those who may be expected ultimately to emigrate. 
 It is known that one-third of the sons of Friends pass through 
 Ackworth school. It is probable that a larger proportion of 
 Ackworth scholars emigrate than of any other section of the 
 Society; but from the data we have given, we think it will readily 
 be admitted that, in estimating the whole number of members 
 who during the present century have emigrated from England 
 and Wales at seven hundred, we have not exceeded the actual 
 number, but are probably below the reality. 
 
 Note 14. 
 
 Two complete enumerations of the Society of Friends in 
 England and Wales were made under the care of the late Samuel 
 Tuke; the first in 1840, the last in 1847. 
 
 The registration of births, marriages, and deaths, was main- 
 
NOTES. 87 
 
 tained by the Society from its origin to the year 1837, — daring the 
 latter part of the time mth great accuracy. From these records, 
 and the statements of marriages given by the Registrar-General, 
 with adjustments supplied from other sources, we are able to 
 ascertain the number of members at the commencement of the 
 present century and the extent of the subsectuent reductions. 
 In the twenty years 1790-1809, we find nineteen hundred and 
 eighty-one marriages recorded, or ninety-nine per year. K to 
 these we add one-third (see note 3), we have an annual average 
 of one hundred and thirty-two. Reckoning one marriage as at 
 this time occurring in one hundred and fifty persons (which, 
 from the circumstances, educational and otherwise, then existing, 
 and from a comparison with the number of births, we believe to 
 be correct), we have nineteen thousand eight hundred as the 
 number of members in England and "Wales in the year 1800. 
 
 In the twenty years 1800 to 1819, the number of marriages re- 
 cordedis 1,789; and 1,711 from 1820 to 1839. From 1840 to 1849 
 the nimiber is six hundred and sixty-six, or sixty-six per year; 
 and in the six years ending with 1855, the annual average is sixty. 
 The births recorded from 1800 to 1819 are nine thousand one hun- 
 dred and ninety-four, against seven thousand seven hundred and 
 forty-six in the twenty years from 1820 to 1839. The burials during 
 the same period are respectively nine thousand three hundred and 
 eighty, and eight thousand nine himdred and fifty-three. The 
 number of members in the Society in 1840 was found by actual 
 enumeration to be sixteen thousand two hundred and seventy- 
 seven, and in 1847 to be fifteen thousand three hundred and 
 forty-five. 
 
 From the indications presented by the several registries of 
 births, marriages, and deaths, we take the diminution of members 
 between 1800 to 1839 to have been three thousand five hundred 
 and twenty-three, or at the rate of eighty-eight per year. 
 
 Between 1840 and 1847 the decrease was nine hundred and 
 thirty- two, or one hundred and thirty-three per year; the decrease 
 in this interval being augmented by temporary circumstances. 
 
 The marriage registry indicates a further reduction of eight 
 hundred and fifteen members between 1847 and 1856, or ninety 
 per year, which leaves the number of members in England and 
 Wales in 1856 to be fourteen thousand five hundred and thirty. 
 
88 QTJAKEEISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 At the several periods the numhers would stand thus: — 
 
 In 1800 19,800 members. 
 
 1810 18,920 
 
 1820 18,040 
 
 1830 17,160 
 
 1840 16,277 
 
 1847 15,345 
 
 1856 14,530* 
 
 Reckoning the number of members in 1800 at 19,800, and in 
 1856 at 14,530, the reduction 5,270 is thus accounted for: — 
 
 Excess of disownments, &c., over admissions (note 11) 2,400 
 
 Excess of deaths over births (note 12) 2,336 
 
 Emigration (note 13) 700 
 
 Total 5,436 
 
 Note 15. 
 The force of this comparison is not at all invalidated by a 
 reference to the number of Friends now residing in other parts 
 of the world. Quakerism has nearly disappeared from the Con- 
 tinent of Europe; and the number of Friends in Australasia is not 
 large. In America they are absolutely more numerous than in 
 1680, but fewer relatively to the whole population than they then 
 were. 
 
 ♦ 14,390 if calculated by the number of deaths {see note 8). 
 
89 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SECOND EPOCH OF QUAKERISM. 
 
 Death of George Eox — Tendencies of Quakerism at that period — 
 Decline of the Society between 1690 and 1760 — Diminished 
 effusion of the Holy Spirit — Commercial prosperity of the 
 Friends — Education: defective in the Society, and the reason 
 for its heing so — Ackworth School founded in 1779, with im- 
 portant results — Diminished number of Ministers — "Acknow- 
 ledging Ministers" — ^Birthright membership. 
 
 " A forty or ffty years has been the term, more or less clearly 
 defined, within which each of those revolutions that marh the history 
 of the human mind has had its rise, has passed its climax, and has 
 gone forward, commingled with other moral forces, and having its own 
 abated. .... Never hitherto has any new impulse, or any 
 strenuous moral movement, been taken up and carried forward by the 
 sons and successors of its originators in the same mind, or with the 
 same, or with nearly the same singleness of purpose. Great men do 
 not repeat themselves in their immediate followers ; or, if the mantle 
 of an Elijah has in some rare instances rested upon an Elisha, yet 
 never, hitherto, has the spirit and power of a company of distinguished 
 persons come upon, or remained with, those who have stood up to 
 represent them before the world." — Isaac Tatlok. 
 
 The founders of the Society of Friends mostly- 
 passed from the stage before the close of the seven- 
 teenth century. Fox survived many of them and 
 
90 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PBESENT. 
 
 died in 1690. His latter years were largely occu- 
 pied in perfecting the Society's internal economy : 
 enfeebled health prevented the frequent missionary 
 journeys of his earlier years, but his mellowed zeal 
 burned brightly to the last. One of his later 
 " epistles " is addressed to ministers in America, 
 inciting them to more activity in preaching to the 
 colonists at large, and to the Indians, instead of 
 confining their labours to those of their own per- 
 suasion. The following extract from the introduc- 
 tion to his Jowmal throws an interesting light on 
 the tendencies of Quakerism at this period, as well 
 as on the character of its dying chieftain : — 
 
 "A few days before he died, he had a ^eat 
 concern upon his mind concerning some in whom the 
 Lord's power was working, to lead them into a 
 ministry and testimony to His truth ; who, through 
 their too much entangling themselves in the things, 
 of this world, did make themselves unready to answer 
 the call and leadings of the power of God,, and hurt 
 the gift that was bestowed upon them, and did not 
 take that regard to their service and ministry as they 
 ought; and mentioned the Apostle's exhortation to 
 Timothy, to ' talte heed to his ministry, and to show 
 himself approved,' &c., and expressed his grief con- 
 cerning such as preferred their own business before 
 
DEATH OF GEORGE FOX. 91 
 
 the Lord's business, and sought the advancing worldly 
 concerns before the concerns of truth; and concluded 
 with a tender and fatherly exhortation to all to whom 
 God had imparted of His heavenly treasure, that 
 they would improve it faithfully and be diligent in 
 the Lord's work, that the earth might be sown with 
 the seed of the kingdom, and God's harvest might be 
 minded by those whom He had called and enabled to 
 labour therein ; and that such would commit the care 
 of their outward concerns to the Lord, who would 
 care for them and give a blessing to them." * 
 
 The Society of Friends had been recruited from 
 such strange materials — from Cromwell's Ironsides, 
 and from all the multitudinous sectaries who flourished 
 during the Commonwealth — ^that it would have been 
 strange had such heterogeneous elements been re- 
 duced into a compact and well-organized community 
 without first passing through a process akin to that 
 of fermentation. This was the actual experience of 
 the infant Church, which,, whilst struggling with 
 persecution from without, was repeatedly threatened 
 with internal dissensions. But Fox triumphed over 
 every opponent; sometimes, as in the fall of James 
 Naylor, leaaning a salutary lesson from an untoward 
 event It is an historical paradox which has not 
 
 * Preface to George Fox's Journal, p. 13. 
 
92 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 failed to attract attention, that the last words of 
 George Fox — the indomitable opponent of time- 
 honoured institutions and prescriptive rights — 
 referred to the triumph of order over anarchy, "the 
 Seed reigns over all disorderly spirits." * Fox's mind, 
 as we have already seen, was large enough to com- 
 bine the constant desire of spreading " the truth" (by 
 which he meant spiritual Christianity as held by 
 himself), with the maintenance of a vigorous and 
 successftd struggle against " the unruly spirits " in 
 the Church to which he acted as bishop. But to 
 pursue these two differing lines of action simul- 
 taneously, was a task beyond the ability of his 
 successors ; and they naturally gave their energies to 
 the one which appeared most needful to maintain 
 internal harmony and general reputation. From 
 the Snake in the Grass it appears that, before 
 the close of the seventeenth century, the disposi- 
 tion of the Society's leaders to regard its consoli- 
 dation as preferable to an extension of its borders, 
 was suflSciently marked to attract the notice of hostile 
 critics. 
 
 Its missionary age now came to a close; the first 
 ove passed away ; and the activity of Quakerism as 
 a system abating, it assumed more and more of that 
 * Preface to George Fox's Journal, p, 12. 
 
COMMERCIAL SUCCESS. 93 
 
 subjective character whicli continues to distinguish it. 
 If we ask, why the first love should so soon have 
 evaporatedj the most obvious reason that presents, 
 is the operation of that law which makes it imprac- 
 ticable for one generation of religious reformers to 
 bequeath to the next the same degree of piety, or the 
 same measure of zeal, with which they themselves are 
 inspired. No one conversant with Church history 
 can have failed to notice, that the periods which have 
 enjoyed the most powerful efPusions of the Holy Spirit 
 have rarely lasted more than about forty years. 
 Attention has been called to this circumstance by 
 different historians;* and in detailing the objective 
 causes which have occasioned the declension of 
 Quakerism we would carefully guard against the 
 charge of overlooking such as lie beyond the range 
 of man's control. We know of no hypothesis that 
 satisfactorily accounts for the success attending the 
 preaching of the early Friends, without admitting 
 that they were favoured with an unwonted visitation 
 of the Holy Spirit, a visitation that was not continued 
 in the same large measure to their successors. It is 
 justly observed in Milner's Church History, that " the 
 first impressions made by the effusions of the Spirit 
 are generally the strongest, and the most decisively 
 * See the extract at the head of the present chapter. 
 
94 QUAKEEISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 distinct from the spirit of the world. But human 
 depravity, overhorne for a time, arises afresh, par- 
 ticularly in the next generation."* 
 
 Persecution, except such as was occasioned by the 
 refusal to pay ecclesiastical demands, virtually ceased 
 in the reign of James IL, the newly obtained liberty 
 being confirmed by the Toleration Act of William and 
 Mary. In the Society's own words, there followed 
 "a day of ease, of outward prosperity, and abated 
 zeal." I With commercial success came wealth ; 
 luxury followed; and as the frequent attendant, 
 though not the necessary consequence, indifference 
 in religious things. This was the distinguishing 
 feature of all the Christian bodies at this period; 
 and it favoured a like condition in the Society of 
 Friends. The mistakes made — may it not be said 
 by all the parties in the Church of England in the 
 early part of the seventeenth century? — specially that 
 of the Puritans in making their appeal to the sword — 
 were now bearing their baneful fruits. After the 
 return of Charles II. even soberly minded men 
 suspected earnest religion to be a hollow thing ; and 
 by the end of the century the English churches, of 
 every denomination, were far gone in that Laodicean 
 
 * Milner's Church History, vol. i. p. 143. 
 
 f Minutes and Proceedings of London Yearly Meeting of Friends, 
 1857, p. 14. 
 
COMMERCIAL SUCCESS. 95 
 
 slumber firom which they were aroused fifty years 
 later by Whitfield and the Wesleys. It is evident 
 from hostile writings, as well as from their own, 
 that BO early as 1700 the 'Quakers were noted for 
 that commercial success which has continued to be 
 common among them to the present day.* 
 
 Is it merely a coincidence, or is it a consequence, 
 that the lofty profession of spirituality made by the 
 Friends has gone hand in hand with shrewdness and 
 tact in the transaction of mundane afi"airs ? Real 
 piety favours the success of a trader by insuring 
 his integrity, and fostering habits of prudence and 
 forethought — important items in obtaining that 
 
 * Snakein theGrass, second edition, p. 16 of preface, a.d. 1697:^ 
 " Though the Quakers at first left their houses and families to shift 
 for themselves, to run about and preach, and cried down riches 
 ■when they had none, yet, since that iime, they have griped 
 Mammon as hard as any of their neighbours, and now call riches 
 a gift and blessing from God." 
 
 A.D. 1699, Epistle from William Edmundson (Wright and Butty's 
 History of Friends in Ireland, p. 199): — "And as our number in- 
 creased, it happened that such a spirit came in amongst us as 
 ■was amongst the Jews when they came out of Egypt, and this 
 began to look back into the -world, and traded with the credit 
 ■which was not of its own purchasing, and striving to be great in 
 the riches and possessions of this world ; and then great, fair 
 buildings in city and country, fine and fashionable furniture and 
 apparel equivalent, with dainty and voluptuous provision, ■with 
 rich matches in marriage, with excessive customary, uncomely 
 smoaldng of tobacco, under colour of la-wful and serviceable, far 
 ■wide from the footsteps of the ministers and elders the Lord raised 
 and sent forth into His work and service at the beginning." 
 
96 QUAKERISM: PAST AM) PRESENT. 
 
 standing and credit in the commercial world, which 
 are rec^uisite for the steady accumulation of wealth. 
 But other and more special agencies, both internal 
 and external, have operated on the Society of Friends, 
 and have directed the energies of its members 
 prominently into the pursuits of traffic. We do not 
 here allude to the excellent education now bestowed 
 on aU the children of Friends, and which imparts a 
 degree of intelligence often superior to that possessed 
 by competitors in the same station in life (this will 
 be considered hereafter), but to the neglect of other 
 pursuits which, in the world at large, serve to abstract 
 men's energies from absorption in commercial en- 
 gagements. The cultivation of the fine arts was 
 discouraged, and the charms of science and liberal 
 literature were but little appreciated in the first 
 century of the Society's history. Since the repeal of 
 the Test and Corporation Act, Friends have not 
 unfrequently filled municipal and magisterial ofiices; 
 but, at the epoch under review, they were excluded 
 from the jury box, fi:om all other civil offices, and 
 were likewise debarred from holding any posts of 
 profit or emolument in the gift of the crown or of 
 municipal corporations. These restrictive regulations 
 produced results resembling those which on a much 
 larger scale have arisen from the denial of the rights 
 
EDUCATION. 97 
 
 of citizenship to tlie Jews. The expenditure of 
 energy having been checked in some directionSj it has 
 been conducted into other channels, of which com- 
 merce has been the principal. 
 
 • A Church striving to maintain its numerical 
 position in an increasing population, will endeavour 
 to induce the children of its members to adopt 
 the faith of their parents when attaining to years 
 of maturity; but as in the healthiest Churches (it 
 was the experience of those existing in Apostolic 
 times), a proportion of these will abandon the 
 paths of virtue, and throw off all religious pro- 
 fession; and as in a country like England, where 
 numerous sects flourish side by side, others wiU 
 be attracted to some Christian community other 
 than that in which they have been educated ; it 
 is obvious that these losses must be compensated 
 for, by the reception of an equal number of con- 
 verts from the world at large or from the ranks 
 of other religionists. The number of persons 
 so received by the Society of Frifends during the 
 eighteenth century was considerable, but very far' 
 short of the numbers lost through various causes.. 
 Amongst these, insufiicient attention to the early 
 religious training of children, and to educationi 
 generally, was not unimportant. 
 
 H 
 
98 QUAKERISM: PAST AJSD PEESENT. 
 
 The first generation of Quakers were not as a 
 wkole an illiterate body of men: the number and 
 bulk of their publications now existing are most 
 extraordinary. In the polemical age they lived in, 
 pamphlet succeeded pamphlet with a rapidity mi- 
 known in the present day ; and it is a safe conclusion, 
 that where so much was written, there were many 
 readers. Some of the "early Friends" were not 
 long in perceiving, that the future welfare of the 
 body would depend much upon the careful education 
 of the young. The right training of its children 
 must ever be an olgect claiming the anxious care of 
 a wise and vigorous Church, and for the maintenance 
 of Quakerism it was of special importance. Yet it is 
 remarkable that the distorted application of the doc- 
 trine of the inward light, nontrihuted. to the neglect 
 of education in the earlier period of the Society's 
 history. It was indeed a perilous phase of enthusiasm 
 that parents should neglect the right training of their 
 families, under the idea that by so doing they were 
 facilitating the immediate operations of the Holy 
 Spirit. The imminence of the danger was com- 
 prehended by George Fox. In 1656 he wrote in 
 warning notes against it, and afterwards repeated 
 the counsel with still more emphasis. In 1669, he 
 says, "Truly my life has been often burdened 
 
EDUCATION, 99 
 
 through the want of restraining servants and children 
 of that hberty they run into. Some among you lead 
 up your children in such a rude, heady way, that 
 when they grow up they do not matter you nor care 
 for you. ... In many things they are worse than 
 many of the world's — ^more loose, stuhhorn, and dis- 
 obedient, so that when they come to he sent appren- 
 tice they run quite out into the world. Therefore, 
 consider these things in all your families, and re- 
 member the time of your former profession when you 
 exercised the reason of men, so as to bring your 
 children and servants to an outward profession ; now, 
 on being come to a possession of life, take heed lest 
 you lose the right reason, wisdom, understanding, 
 and knowledge." * 
 
 It is obvious that the children of Friends must 
 have been very unfavourably circumstanced at this 
 early period in relation to educational provisions. 
 The numerous foundations existing in the country, 
 bequeathed by the munificence of previous ages, were 
 not open to them, and the law presented formidable 
 obstacles to the existence of schools for their exclusive 
 benefit. Fox, however (harassed as the Society then 
 was by persecution), succeeded, about 1667, in esta- 
 blishing two boarding schools in the neighbourhood 
 * George Vox's Epistles, p. 309. 
 
 K 2 
 
100 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 of London, where he desired "girls and young 
 maidens," as well as boys, "might he instructed in 
 all things civil and useful in the creation."* Five 
 years later, fifteen hoarding schools, at least, are 
 known to have been in operation. These were prin- 
 cipally conducted by persons of liberal education, 
 clergymen, &c., who in uniting with the Friends aban- 
 doned their previous profession, and they were mainly 
 used by the middle and wealthier classes. The 
 poorer children were partially instructed ia day 
 schools held in some of the Society's meeting-houses. 
 But it is evident these provisions were very in- 
 adequate to the requirements of the case, and became 
 increasingly so, when the talented men above referred 
 to, were removed by death, and competent successors 
 -were not forthcoming in sufficient numbers to fill the 
 vacant places. How clearly the injury thus sustained 
 was perceived by the London Yearly Meeting, is 
 shown by the constant recurrence to the subject in the 
 annual " epistles " issued by that body between 1680 
 and 1790. It was, however, long before this re- 
 peated advice produced tangible results. No provision 
 existed for furnishing a supply of efficient teachers; 
 the low rate of remuneration deterred persons from 
 entering the honourable profession as a means of 
 * George Fox's Journal, p. 316. 
 
EDUCATION. 101 
 
 procuring a livelihood; and the many suggestions 
 offered for removing or lessening these difficulties, 
 failed in attaining the desired result. Indifference 
 prevailed, specially in the rural districts, where the 
 Friends largely resided, and where (remarks the late 
 Samuel Tuke) " there is reason to believe ignorance 
 was but too prevalent ; and it has long been observed 
 that the desire for knowledge is usually in the inverse 
 proportion of its need." * Thus education continued 
 very defective during the latter part of the seven- 
 teenth century and the earlier part of the eighteenth, 
 and large evidence remains, to show that numbers 
 of ill-disciplined, badly educated youths foimd the 
 Society's enclosure too strait for them, and either 
 openly separated from its communion or remained 
 mere nominal members, to be disunited from the 
 body whenever a revival of the discipline should 
 take place. The loss of members thus occasioned 
 was very large. 
 
 The increase of attention given to church dis- 
 cipline in the middle of the eighteenth century, was 
 connected with an augmented zeal for the education 
 of the young. In 1799, the indefatigable labours of 
 Dr. Fothergill and his coadjutors, resulted in the 
 
 * Five Papers on the Proceedings of the Society of Friends in con- 
 nection with Education, p. 51. 
 
102 QUAICEEISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 establisliment by the London Yearly Meeting of a 
 large boarding scbool at Ackwortb, in Yortshire, as 
 also in the formation of endowments in various parts 
 of England for the encouragement of education. The 
 condition of Ack worth School now, is greatly superior 
 to what it was in its early days, yet from its origin it 
 exercised a powerful influence on the Society at large. 
 " Gradually," says Samuel Tuke, " the extent of in- 
 tellectual instruction given at Ackworth came to be 
 considered as the standard of what was due to the 
 poorest children, when their education had to be pro- 
 vided at the expense of the Society ; " * and now for 
 nearly eighty years the children of JFriends in the 
 poorer and middle classes have received a good Eng- 
 lish education, combined with careful moral training. 
 This increased diffusion of intelligence has operated 
 in raising the general position of the Eriends in tiie 
 social scale; many a poor boy educated at the Society's 
 expense in Ackworth School having risen to take his 
 place amongst the merchants of our great cities. 
 
 One of the social consequences resulting from 
 tiiis movement from a lower to a higher station 
 in life, is the increased rarity of marriage.f The 
 emigration of young men from the agrictdtural 
 districts has been stimulated by the diffusion of 
 
 * S. Tuke's Five Papers, p. 91. t See Note 3, p. 77. 
 
ACKWORTH SCHOOL, ETC. 103 
 
 education, as they were naturally unwilling to remain 
 day labourers in the employment of others, when 
 their mental capacities fitted them for independent 
 positions — but which could only be obtained in coun- 
 tries where capital is not, as in England, essential 
 to a farmer's success. In some agricultural monthly 
 meetings it is ascertained that a quarter of all the 
 Ackworth boys have emigrated (and mostly to 
 America). 
 
 Another result of this extended diffusion of educa- 
 tion, was a fiiller apprehension of its value; one 
 school rose after another, framed on the model of Ack- 
 worth, and under the care of different " quarterly " 
 or other meetings, in which the literary instruction 
 and general management varied accordii^ to the 
 class of scholars for which it was intended ; whether 
 in the lower, the middle, or the higher walks of life. 
 These establishments have not altogether superseded 
 private schools: some excellent institutions of that class 
 still exist in the Society. If so much educational pro- 
 vision is now required, how vastly deficient must it 
 have been in former times, when the number of chil- 
 dren to be taught was three times greater than at 
 present ! 
 
 The causes now enumerated, which include the de- 
 ficient provision of religious education for the young, 
 
104 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 the increasing wealth of the body, the inadequate 
 estimate of the value of Holy Scripture, the neg- 
 lect of the gift of teaching and of other outward 
 means for the maintenance of religion, explain the 
 degeneracy of the second generation of Quakers. 
 With some of the first Friends, as with many 
 other good but unlearned men, the practical ex- 
 hibition of their religion was often preferable to 
 their written exposition of it; and it has been 
 much overlooked, that whilst George Fox lived, 
 his strong common sense prevented, or lessened," the 
 operation of evils which afterwards developed them- 
 selves. Thus, as regards the subjects of worship 
 and ministry, his writings do not furnish those high . 
 encomiums on silence which have past current in 
 later times — practically he did not forget that " Faith 
 comes by hearing ; " and his dying words previously 
 quoted, refiite the supposition that he expected any 
 large spread of Christian truth, independently of 
 the faithful preaching of the Gospel.* Visitors to 
 Swarthmor^ Meeting-House, near Ulverstone, still 
 standing by the old mansion of Judge Fell, are shown 
 Fox's great Bible, once chained to the minister's 
 gallery : in this little circumstance we discern a more 
 enlarged appreciation of the value of the Holy 
 * See page 90. 
 
DECLENSIOSr OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 105 
 
 Scriptures, in assisting the right performance of 
 worship, than was possessed hy some of his con- 
 temporaries, or has been shown by their successors. 
 Fox's personal influence in counterbalancing the 
 seclusive effects of the disciplinary system he had 
 organized, has been already adverted to, and we now 
 add one extract from his Epistles (it is far from being 
 a solitary instance), proving his anxiety lest, under the 
 pretext of renouncing the "forms" of religion, the sub- 
 stance itself should be lost, — an anxiety not equally 
 present with his successors : " Now, Friends who have 
 denied the world's songs and singing, sing ye in the 
 spirit and with grace, making melody in your hearts 
 to the Lord. And ye having denied the world's 
 formal praying, pray ye always in the Spirit and 
 watch in it. And ye that have denied the world's 
 giving of thanks and their saying of grace and 
 living out of it, do ye in everything give thanks to 
 the Lord through Jesus Christ. And ye that have 
 denied the world's praising God with their lips, 
 whilst their hearts are afar off, do ye always praise 
 the Lord night and day, and from the rising of the 
 sun to the going down of the game praise ye the Lord. 
 And ye that have denied the world's fastings, and of 
 their hanging down their heads like a bulrush for a 
 day, who smite with the fist of wickedness, keep ye 
 
106 QITAKEEISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 the fast of the Lord, that treaks the bond of iniquity 
 and lets the oppressed go free ; that your health may 
 grow, and your light may shine as the morning." * 
 
 Our information as to the state of the Society of 
 Friends in the middle ages of its history, is less full 
 and complete than of its rise and iirst progress ; hut 
 from the biographies of John Griffiths, Samuel 
 Bownas, Thomas Storey and others, as well as from 
 the annual epistles issued by the Yearly Meeting, we 
 discover its progressive decline, as evidenced by the 
 neglect of the worship of God, by an extended con- 
 formity to the practices of the world, inconsistent 
 with the Christian character ; by a maladministration 
 of the discipline, and by a diminution of charity in 
 reheving the wants of the poor, &c. The refiisal of 
 ecclesiastical demands was in many cases compro- 
 mised; tiie plain dress and language of the early 
 Friends in some parts of the country was no longesr 
 seen or heard, and the diminished size of meetings is 
 often alluded to. The number of preachers was 
 largely reduced from what it had been in the earlier 
 period, whilst lie number of women in that station 
 bore a much larger proportion to that of men than 
 had previously been the case ; and there will hardly be 
 a dissentient to the soundness of Joseph J. Gumey's 
 * George S"ox's Epistles, p. 127. 
 
DECLENSION OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 107 
 
 statement, that " it is far from being an indication of 
 life and soundness in the body, when the stronger sex 
 withdraws from the battles of the Lord, and leaves 
 them to be fought by those whose physical weakness 
 and delicacy have an obvious tendency to render 
 them less fit for the combat." * The statistics of visite 
 paid by English ministers to Ireland confirm this 
 statement. From 1660 to 1679, fifty-two men and 
 two female ministers visited that island; during the 
 next twenty years, in spite of the civil wars, re- 
 ligious visits were paid by one hundred and three 
 of the former and ten of the latter. Between 1700 
 and 1719 the number of men declined to ninety-five, 
 and the women increased to fifty; and from 1720 to 
 1739 the num^bers were respectively seventy-eight 
 and fifty-seven, t The statistics of ministerial visits 
 to America are very similar in their import to those 
 of Ireland. A proof of the number of ministers m 
 Barclay's days is given in his Apology, where it -is 
 stated, "In the many gatherings and meetings of 
 such as are convinced of the truth, there is scarce 
 any in which God raiseth not up some or other to 
 minister to his brethren, and there are few meetings 
 
 * J. J. Gnmey on the Religious Peculiarities of Friends, p. 226. 
 This opinion was strongly held by W. Edmondson. See Wright 
 and Rutty 'b History of Friends in Ireland, p. 222. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 351. 
 
108 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 that are altogether silent." * The power wielded by 
 an itinerant ministry has been prominently displayed 
 in modern times by the Methodist preachers, and we 
 may estimate its influence on early Quakerism by 
 learning that the visits paid by ministers from a 
 distance, averaged one a fortnight in some meetings 
 for years together. In Bristol, so fully was the time 
 devoted to public worship occupied by ministry, that 
 the expediency of holding meetings compulsorily silent 
 was seriously entertained, f What a contrast does 
 such a condition of things present to that of not a 
 few meetings at the present time, which are abso- 
 lutely silent sabbath after sabbath for months if not 
 for years ! 
 
 The practice of " acknowledging " ministers, as it 
 is termed, is one which gradually estabHshed itself, 
 and it is one which, whilst conferring some impor- 
 tant benefits on the Society, has probably diminished 
 the amotmt of preaching in its religious meetings. 
 In the seventeenth century any one believing it 
 to be his duty, was at liberty to speak as a 
 minister in meetings for worship, and all in the 
 habit of doing so wete considered to be preach- 
 ers in unity with the body, unless the monthly 
 
 * Prop, on Worship, sect. ix. p. 340. 
 t W. Tanner's Lectures, p. 90. 
 
"ACKNOWLEDGING MINISTERS." 109 
 
 meeting specially declared to the contrary. It would 
 be out of place here to detail at length the steps by 
 which this absence of arrangement was exchanged for 
 the greater precision of the present practice, by which 
 monthly meetings deliberate upon and record the 
 names of those persons whose ministry is thought to 
 attest the reality of their " gifts ; " but it may not be 
 useless briefly to direct attention to a change, the 
 importance and operation of which has been very 
 generally overlooked. Committees of experienced in- 
 dividuals were very early appointed by monthly and 
 other meetings, to visit the families of their members, 
 and to extend such religious counsel in each case as 
 appeared desirable. These visitors were denominated 
 "elders." Additional duties to that of religious 
 family visitation were afterwards imposed on them, 
 including the care of persons beginning to preach in 
 meetings for worship. With such parties the "elders " 
 united for religious conference in select gatherings sub- 
 sequently called "Meetings of Ministers and Elders." 
 The duty of exercising a general, unofficial oversight 
 over the congregation to which he belonged, was 
 often centred in the same individual, who discharged 
 the more special services of an "elder," till about 
 the year 1753, when the Yearly Meeting thought it 
 desirable to make provision for the more systematic 
 
110 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 oversight of its members, both ministers and others. 
 Tinder the arrangements then instituted, the general 
 care of the ministry was assigned to officers retaining 
 the name of " elders," the oversight of the flock being 
 confided to individuals, likewise appointed by monthly 
 meetings, who received the title of " overseers." The 
 duties of the elders being no longer exclusively 
 confined to the care of the junior preachers, the 
 " Meetings of Ministers and Elders " changed their 
 character, and assumed that of assemblies charged 
 with the special regulation and government of those 
 composing them ; without, however, trenching on the 
 powers possessed by monthly meetings. When an 
 individual has spoken as a minister of the Gospel 
 for some time, the character of his communications 
 is considered by the monthly meeting to which he 
 belongs ; if approved of, and nothing in his conduct 
 prevents, his name is recorded by minute on the 
 books of the monthly meeting as an " acknowledged 
 minister," such a step conferring the right to sit and 
 take part in "Meetings of Ministers and Elders." 
 It requires no remarks of ours to point out that these 
 regulations are calculated to limit the amount of 
 preaching more than was the case with the simple 
 provisions of the seventeenth century.* 
 * The authorities from -which this information is derived are 
 
BIRTHRIGHT MEMBERSHIP. Ill 
 
 In considering the general lethargy of the Society 
 of Friends from 1700 to 1760, and even a later 
 period, it must not be overlooked that, from its non- 
 centralized constitution, the condition of things in 
 different localities was liable to great variations. The 
 memoirs of Samuel Fothergill and others prove that 
 such differences did exist, that some lights still shone 
 amongst the prevailing dimness, and the epistles 
 issued by the Yearly Meeting show that the men 
 who constituted that assembly, were able annually to 
 address much sound Christian counsel to the body at 
 large. 
 
 The year 1737 is remarkable as being that in 
 which "membership" was first recognized by the 
 Yearly Meeting. Previous to that period (as before 
 observed) the only criterion for determining con- 
 nection with the Society of Friends was habitual 
 attendance at its religious meetings. Nor in times 
 of persecution was any other test required; but at 
 the period we have now reached, " when the profes- 
 sion of a Friend no longer tested individual convic- 
 tion, difficulty arose in determining the limits of the 
 Society's responsibility for the exercise of its discipline 
 
 Wright and Rutty's History of Friends in Ireland, pp. 387, &c.; 
 W. Tanner's Lectures on the Early History of Friends in Bristol and 
 Somerset ; Rules and Advices of London Yearly Meeting ; Manuscript 
 Minutes of York Quarterly Meeting, &c. &c. 
 
112 QUAKEKISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 and the proper relief of its poor," which induced the 
 Yearly Meeting to issue the following minute: " That 
 all Friends shall be deemed members of the quar- 
 terly, monthly, or two weeks' meeting, within the 
 compass of which they inhabited or dwelt the 1st 
 day of 4th month, 1737."* Many years elapsed 
 before the consequences resulting from this enact- 
 ment fully developed themselves. In some respects 
 the evils that have arisen from it are more evident at 
 the present time than had previously been the case j 
 but we conceive, it might have been early discovered, 
 that to make membership in a Christian Church 
 dependent on the accident of birth, was very much 
 to abandon the New Testament idea of a Church. 
 Instead of being a company of faithful men and 
 women, united in religious fellowship and possessing 
 a strong bond of union in heartfelt allegiance 
 to their common Lord, the Society of Friends in- 
 creasingly assumed the character of a corporation, 
 existing for ends partly religious, pai-tly social, and 
 partly civil; and containing a number of persons 
 unconverted to God. From the children of Friends 
 being registered as members at the time of birth, and 
 being esteemed such till their names are removed by 
 
 * Statements connected with the Marriage Regulations of Frimds, 
 p. 6. 
 
BIRTHRIGHT MEMBERSHIP. 113 
 
 death, disownment, or resignation, even should they 
 give little or no evidence of the possession of personal 
 piety, memtership has virtually become hereditary, 
 having certain privileges contingent on its possession, 
 and descends from father to son almost like other 
 property. From this anomalous provision operating 
 in conjunction with their marriage regulations, the 
 Friends, as they have declined in numbers, have 
 become increasingly bound together by family 
 relationship; and whilst the spirit of clanship has 
 conferred some elements of strength, it has also 
 favoured the growth of that exclusive feeling which is 
 rarely absent from any association of men, in which 
 membership is principally obtained through heredi- 
 tary descent. Such bodies, it is well known, look 
 suspiciously on the infusion of new blood into their 
 constitution ; and a feeling of this character has had 
 a powerful influence amongst the Friends during the 
 last century in making them indifferent to the ob- 
 taining of proselytes. 
 
 In the latter part of last century the difficulties 
 that arose from "meetings for discipline" being 
 merely composed of a few elder Friends (sometimes 
 possessing little qualification for the office but that of 
 age), induced a. change in their constitution, and 
 gradually the attendance of all "members" was 
 
 I 
 
114 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 encouraged. After this change the weakness occa- 
 sioned by the retention of numerous nominal adult 
 "members," having a right to assist in its church 
 government, and generally to influence the policy of 
 the body, became more apparent. The presence of 
 children in disciplinary meetings (as listeners merely) 
 has been decidedly beneficial, and constitutes an 
 important educational agency; but we think that 
 had some arrangement existed, by which young per- 
 sons on attaining to years of maturity should make 
 a simple profession of their faith, or renounce their 
 " membership " in the body, it would have operated 
 as a powerful stimulus to serious parents, as well 
 as to healthy congregations, in giving their chil- 
 dren and young people that careful religious train- 
 ing which would be the most fitting preparation for 
 such a profession. It would also have prevented or 
 lessened the evils arising from the retention of 
 merely nominal members. The maxim, that " what 
 is easily obtained is lightly esteemed," declares a true 
 principle; and from "membership" being so indis- 
 criminately granted to all the children of Friraids, it 
 is often regarded by them, when rising into manhood 
 or womanhood, in a false light: instead of being 
 esteemed a privilege — as membership with a Christian 
 Church should ever be— it has been felt to be a 
 
BIETHEIGHT MEMBERSHIP. 115 
 
 burden imposing restraints not demanded by their 
 own consciences. Family ties, or other causes, often 
 prevent such young people from separating the 
 connection between themselves and the Society : the 
 Church itself will not do it, unless some act penal 
 under its discipline be committed; and so they 
 remain, sometimes throughout a long lifetime (if 
 we may accommodate Lord Macaulay's metaphor), 
 "members of the" Society, "but withered and 
 distorted members, adding no strength to the body, 
 and reproachfully pointed at by all who fear or envy 
 the greatness " of Quakerism. 
 
 When the regulations respecting membership had 
 existed thirty or forty years, a considerable body of 
 persons grew up, attending meetings for worship, and, 
 making more or less of profession with the Friends — 
 but not in membership. As this class was constantly 
 recruited from parties who were disowned, but who 
 retained some affection for their former principles or 
 practices, by the children of such persons, and from 
 other sources, it has increased to such an extent as 
 now to constitute more than one quarter of all the 
 worshippers in the meeting-houses of Friends. How 
 suitably to provide for the education, oversight, and 
 marriage arrangements of this large body of persons, 
 not considered as forming an integral part of the 
 
 I 2 
 
116 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 Society, but separated from it by an arbitrary and 
 accidental line only, has been a source of continual 
 difficulty; and by neglecting these duties, loss has 
 been occasioned to the individuals themselves, and 
 much weakness to the Society induced. 
 
117 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE THIRD EPOCH OF QUAKERISM: CAUSES OF 
 DECLINE PRINCIPALLY INTRODUCED AFTER 1760. 
 
 The revival of the Discipline, 1760 — Its defective character — 
 The Friends increasingly isolate themselves — Quietism — Irish 
 secessions — ^Hicksites — ^Philanthropy — Dress and Language, 
 
 " The hody of which Christ is the head was never meant to be 
 nursed and petted into that extreme delicacy, as to need being cur- 
 tained in from all the airs which might possibly blow upon her. Hera 
 is a constitution which will best thrive and become most robust when 
 most in contact with that atmosphere to which the wisdom of God has 
 evidently adapted it." — Edwaed Miall. 
 
 The wide-spread revival of religion in England 
 under the ministrations of Wesley and Whitfield 
 was not without an influence on the Society of 
 Friends, though we have not discovered any im- 
 mediate connection between it and the resuscita- 
 tion of the Society's Discipline effected about 1760, 
 through the labours of a large committee deputed 
 by the London Yearly Meeting to visit all its sub- 
 ordinate meetings throughout the kingdom. This 
 
118 QUAKEEISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 committee succeeded in restoring to working order 
 much of the ecclesiastical machinery that had fallen 
 into desuetude : monthly meetings too small for the 
 efficient discharge of their duties were amalgamated, 
 and large numbers of merely nominal members were 
 disowned, — some for immoral conduct, some for non- 
 attendance of meetings, or implication in warlike 
 undertakings, others for the payment of tithes, 
 church-rates,, &c.* 
 
 It may be mentioned as a singular proof of the 
 traditional character Quakerism had assumed in some 
 districts, that about twenty years after this period a 
 committee of York Quarterly Meeting to which had 
 been confided the care of a seaport congregation, 
 many of whose wealthy members were in the habit 
 of arming their ships, and of otherwise belying their 
 profession, had to leave the town by a road rarely 
 used, to avoid the risk of personal violence when 
 these influential offenders were subjected to the 
 penalty of disownment. 
 
 One result of the labours of the Yearly. Meeting's 
 committee of 1760, is evident in the increased care 
 exercised by monthly meetings in the recording of 
 births, &c. The number of entries in the Society's 
 register, which averaged nearly one thousand per 
 * See Journal of John Griffiths. 
 
EEVIVAL OF 1760. 119 
 
 year between 1670-1679, had declined to five 
 hundred and fifty-seven between 1750-1759, but 
 advanced to six hundred and one between 1760- 
 1769, and to six hundred and fifly -eight in the next 
 decade, notwithstanding the extensive disownments 
 which had taken place.* 
 
 In perusing the narratives of these transactions, 
 the careful reader, whilst admiring such an outbreak 
 of zeal in the midst of a chilling indifference, can 
 hardly fail to remark the inferiority of the men who 
 revived the discipline, as compared with those who 
 established it ; — an inferiority that displayed itself in 
 a lack of general comprehensiveness of mind ; in an 
 imperfect apprehension of the true objects to be at- 
 tained by church government, and of the means 
 rightly applicable for their attainment, as well as 
 in a want of attention to the scriptural principles 
 which should regulate and determine all disciplinary 
 action. This change may be accounted for by the 
 more sectarian stand-point occupied by the leaders of 
 1760, as compared with that of their predecessors : 
 the Society of Triends was no longer an advancing, 
 aggressive body, aspiring to universal dominion — it 
 was one sect among many, recognized as such by 
 Acts of Parliament, possessing certain exclusive civil 
 * See Notes 4, 5, and 7, pp. 79, 80, and 82. 
 
120 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PEESENT, 
 
 privileges, and its serious members were increasingly 
 isolated from general society. It is not strange that 
 men surrounded from childhood by such influences, 
 and receiving the shibboleths of their creed by here- 
 ditary descent, should be less catholic in their desires, 
 and more contracted in their aims, than was the case 
 with the first apostles of Quakerism. Thus the reno- 
 vation of the Society's economy devolved on men, 
 not a few of whom were earnest, but narrow-minded 
 — a race of people always ill qualified to discharge 
 the functions of ecclesiastical reformers. 
 
 Had there been amongst these reforming Friends, 
 men of the perception enjoyed by Ignatius Loyola, 
 they would have known that the truest way of re- 
 suscitating a declining Church is to make it again 
 aggressive — is to incite its members to enter on such 
 fields of Christian labour as are best adapted for 
 calling out their talents, and through such labours 
 those " who water, being themselves watered," and 
 reactiag on the body at large, the tone of religious 
 feeling throughout the community is raised. This 
 was a main secret of Loyola's success in reanimating 
 Eoman CathoHcism in the sixteenth century;* but 
 the very reverse of this policy was adopted by 
 the reformers of Quakerism. In the language of 
 * See Stephens' Essoj/s, vol. i. p. 185. 
 
NEGATIVE TESTIMONY BEAKING. 121 
 
 the Westminster Review, the aspirations of the early- 
 Friends, their " brave assault upon the world," their 
 " crusade against its potentates to subject them, the 
 whole nature of man, and all the nations of the 
 earth, to the kingdom of Christ," had failed; and 
 now " the invaders retreated within their own bor- 
 ders, and endeavoured painfully and fruitlessly to 
 isolate themselves from the world they had hoped 
 to con(][uer." * 
 
 This very remarkable change had heen progressing 
 since 1690. The " early Friends" believed they had 
 " a testimony to bear " to many truths of which the 
 world was forgetful ; and their testimony was a posi- 
 tive one. The " later Friends " have borne witness 
 to the same truths, but their testimony has been a 
 negative one. From the catholic views entertained 
 by George Fox and his coadjutors relative to the 
 kingdom of Christ, from their believing it to be a 
 universal spiritual kingdom, extending to every 
 nation of the world, it was their unceasing endea- 
 vour to increase the number of loyal subjects of 
 that kingdom, to the praise of its great Sovereign, 
 When pressed to explain themselves, they dis- 
 claimed any pretensions on behalf of their Society, 
 as if it were the sole outward embodiment of this 
 
 * Westminster Review, 1852, p. 619. 
 
122 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 kingdom, but they nevertheless thought it was the 
 principal one; their ideas of "testimony bearing" 
 were, by logical sequence, associated ■with the con- 
 tinued increase of the Society of Friends, the con- 
 tinued spread of "truth," the increasing subjection 
 of the kingdoms of this world to the kingdom of 
 Christ. Did they object to tithes? Their efforts 
 to have them aboUshed were indefatigable. Did 
 they object to solemnizing marriage by a priest? 
 They endeavoured to " show a more excellent 
 way ; " to have as many persons as practicable 
 married at their meeting-houses; and the circum- 
 stance of a " Friend " marrying at a parish church 
 was made the occasion for solemnly protesting, 
 before the officiating clergyman and hundreds of 
 neighbours, against priestly usurpations in the cele- 
 bration of the nuptial rites. So we might proceed 
 through the long catalogue of their " testimonies," 
 and show how thoroughly practical and positive was 
 their mode of upholding them. 
 
 The change that slowly took place cannot be as- 
 signed to any single cause ; it was brought about by 
 the conjoint action of several The withdrawal of 
 the stimulus of persecution, increasing opulence, the 
 declining number of ministers, the seclusive influence 
 of the discipline, and the traditional, unadaptative 
 
GOVERNMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1759. 123 
 
 character given by birthright membership, appear to 
 have been the principal agents. Within the last 
 century, " testimony " has not been borne against 
 tithes by strenuous efforts to have them abolished; 
 but if a Friend pays tithes he is disowned : if a 
 Friend marries before a clergyman, no pains are 
 taken to inform the public of the Society's objections 
 to such a procedure ; no endeavour is made to have 
 as many persons as possible married in a manner 
 simple and non-clerical ; " testimony " is borne by 
 disowning offenders. This negative "testimony 
 bearing " has been, we think, one of tiie greatest 
 delusions of modern Quakerism ; it is nearly inopera- 
 tive on the population at large, and it is continually 
 lessening the number of persons qualified to uphold 
 the Society's standard. 
 
 A prominent example of this change of poHcy is 
 furnished by the conduct of the Society in relation to 
 the Government of Pennsylvania. In consequence of 
 public dissatisfaction with the votes of the Quaker 
 representatives in the House of Assembly for that 
 State, in refusing to furnish military aid against 
 the Indians, the EngKsh Government proposed to 
 prevent their acting as legislators, by imposing an 
 oath as a necessary test of competency for filling this 
 position. After a very short struggle, the point was 
 
124 QUAICERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 virtually surrendered by the Friends ; the obnoxious 
 members vacating their seats, they and their co-reli- 
 gionists decHning afterwards to offer themselves as 
 candidates for legislative offices. This step was ad- 
 vised by the " Meeting for Sufferings" in London, 
 who sent a deputation to enforce its necessity on their 
 American brethren, and the latter showed the greatest 
 alacrity in responding to the advice. " Upon the 
 whole," writes Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to that in 
 London in 1759, " you may observe somewhat of our 
 present circumstances, and that our connections with 
 the powers of the earth are reduced to small bounds, 
 which we fervently desire may have the proper effect to 
 establish the Church in righteousness, and fix our trust 
 in the Lord alone for protection and deliverance."* 
 With what unfeigned surprise would William Peian 
 and George Fox have read such a paragraph ! The 
 whole transaction is, however, very significant, and 
 may be taken as a representative instance of the admis- 
 sion made by the Quakers of the eighteenth century, 
 that their rehgion, whilst professedly so practical in its 
 character as to affect the remotest minutiae of speech 
 and dress, was still unable to flourish in connection 
 with many of the offices and employments which men 
 in civil life necessarily engage in. The contrast in 
 * Bowden's History of America, vol. ii. p. 281. 
 
STATE OF SOCIETY IN 18TH CENTURY. 125 
 
 this respect between modern and ancient Quakerism is 
 striking : of late times the Friends have increasingly- 
 congregated in some few trades and professions; in 
 the earlier period they were found occupying every 
 position in society, from the trade of an innkeeper to 
 the more esalted station of a colonial governor. 
 
 In the first pages of this volume we have shown 
 how thoroughly Quakerism was moulded by the age 
 in which it arose, — an age of earnestness in religious 
 things, not a sceptical or indifferent one. Had the 
 Friends of 1760 been men of larger mental calibre, 
 they would have seen that the hundred and ten years 
 that had elapsed since the rise of their body, had 
 made an enormous difference in the circumstances 
 that surrounded it, and that the arrangements suited 
 to a period when high religious profession was 
 fashionable, were inapplicable to one in which such 
 a profession was popularly derided. When it was 
 needful for Bishop Butler to write his Analogy, and 
 when the very truth of Christianity was extensively 
 denied, it might have seemed to be self-evident, that 
 the only way of salvation to the sinner should have 
 been declared and insisted on with the utmost perspi- 
 cuity, and that no outward means of religious instruc- 
 tion should have been omitted, for guarding the young 
 against the blasting infidelity prevailing around them. 
 
126 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 But no effort appears to have been made to re- 
 establisli the instruction meetings of earlier times, or 
 to encourage social gatherings for the carefiil study 
 of Holy Scripture and mutual edification ; nor were 
 the few remaining provisions for aggressive action 
 strengthened or extended. The circular yearly 
 meetings were discontinued in consequence of the 
 disorders which had sometimes accompanied them, 
 and the other assenlblies for disciplinary purposes 
 assumed more and more of a sectarian character. 
 It must also be observed that the discipline of the 
 " Middle Ages " was much more legal in its character 
 and administration, than that of the earlier period; 
 the loving, reclaiming spirit towards offenders then 
 so prominent a feature, was substituted by one 
 " desirous to maintain the credit of the Society and 
 to enforce compliance with its rules ; " instances oc- 
 curring in which parties were disowned " forthwith," 
 and without receiving any previous " labour." * 
 
 It is to the different condition of Enghsh society in 
 the eighteenth century as compared with the seven- 
 teenth, that the different results flowing at the two 
 periods from the doctrine of personal spiritual guid- 
 ance, are largely attributable. In the former it led 
 
 * See W. Tanner's Lectures on the History of Friends in Somerset- 
 shire and Bristol. 
 
PHEASEOLOGY. 127 
 
 to great activity in religious matters, in the latter 
 it favoured the spread of a "withering quietism." 
 There was an air of greater mystery thrown round 
 the ministry of the Gospel in the eighteenth century; 
 it was considered to be less amenable to ordinary 
 motives in exciting to its exercise, whilst at the same 
 time the Society placed additional safeguards against 
 the exercise of undue zeal. The information annually 
 furnished in early times, for the direction of ministers 
 as to the meetings or districts in which their visits 
 would be well received by the inhabitants, was no 
 longer collected ; but preachers thinking it their duty 
 to visit the churches in America, were required to 
 obtain the sanction of three meetings instead of one, 
 as had previously been the case.* 
 
 Indicative of the trains of thought and feeling pre- 
 vailing at this period is the origin and growth of a 
 phraseology, associating spiritual guidance with the 
 idea of something essentially recognizable by the 
 senses. We may instance as an illustration of this 
 disposition the use of the word " perceptible," subse- 
 quently so largely applied by Joseph John Gurney and 
 others to the operations of the Holy Spirit. Whilst 
 most ftilly admitting that the blessed intimations of 
 heavenly love and guidance are, and may be, "per- 
 * See Rules of Discipline and Advices. 
 
128 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 ceptible," is it not as certain that they are ofttimes 
 imperceptible even when immediate ? and does it not 
 continue to be at this day as it was with the disciples 
 of old when approaching Emmaus, that the heart is 
 warmed and the Scriptures opened to the under- 
 standing, whilst the eye fails to recognize the pre- 
 sence of the heavenly Teacher ? We submit that it 
 is somewhat inconsistent in a Church which so stre- 
 nuously objects to the words " Trinity" and " Sacra- 
 ment," because they are not found in Scripture, to 
 be at the same time in the constant use of a term, 
 equally unsanctioned by the letter of Scripture, and 
 liable to convey erroneous ideas as to the manner 
 and evidence of the Divine illumination. We 
 have not found this phrase in the vocabulary of 
 the " early Friends," and we believe a close exami- 
 nation of their writings will disclose the existence 
 of a material difierence of idea, between the man- 
 ner in which the first and the third generation of the 
 Friends regarded the manifestations of the Holy 
 Spirit. There were multitudes of persons in the 
 Republican army and elsewhere, who in the days of 
 George Fox claimed to be divinely inspired. From 
 the theology of the Puritans being deeply tinged 
 with Old Testament ideas, their belief in the manner 
 of Divine inspiration was Jewish rather than Chris- 
 
DECLENSION OE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 129 
 
 tian; they looked for the sudden, temporary, and 
 overwhelming descent of the sacred afflatus, rather 
 than to the constant presence of the Comforter in the 
 heart of every believer, and in larger measure in the 
 heart of every Gospel minister. Though it was the 
 peculiar calUng of George Fox and his associates to 
 defend the latter doctrine, they associated parts of the 
 Puritan belief with it, and probably the Puritan 
 phraseology retained by the Society, was influential 
 in leading it increasingly to regard the manifestations 
 of the Spirit, as temporary and " perceptible" in their 
 character, rather than as the silently working leaven 
 of the spiritual kingdom changing and enlightening 
 the heart; thus exposing to the charge of reverting to 
 the Old Testament economy instead of recognizing 
 the privileges of the New : we doubt not this is one 
 cause of the continued deficiency of laboiu:ers in those 
 departments of the Church's service, where spiritual 
 guidance is regarded as most essential. 
 
 The following cautiously worded resume of this 
 period is from the Memoirs of Joseph J. Gurney, 
 edited by Joseph B. Braithwaite: — "Yet in this 
 revival there appeared lacking that thorough Chris- 
 tian devotedness which was so remarkably mani- 
 fested at the rise of the Society. Whilst the 
 preaching of the Gospel amongst Friends at this 
 
130 QUAKEEISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 period was oftEn marked by great earnestness in 
 setting forth the spirituality of religion, and the 
 necessity of its inward operations, it was not always 
 connected with an equally clear and practical enforce- 
 ment of other great and not less essential portions 
 of revealed truth, which in the minds of the earlier 
 Friends were inseparably connected with their deep 
 and comprehensive views of the soul-searching and 
 spiritual character of true Cln^istianity. And it may 
 perhaps be added that the increased attention to the 
 discipline, valuable and important as it was, was too 
 often associated with too rigid an adherence to forms 
 and a tendency to multiply rules, and to make the 
 exact carrying of them out, in degree at least, a 
 substitute for that patient and discriminating wisdom 
 tempered with love which should ever characterize 
 Christian discipline."* 
 
 In Ireland the spiritual life of the Society had 
 long been languishing, and towards the close of the 
 eighteenth century , pernicious effects flowing from 
 an excessive exaltation of the " inward light" be- 
 came evident,t more especially amongst tlie minis- 
 ters and elders, by an open questioning of the 
 
 * Memoirs of J. J. Gurnet/, vol. ii. p. 3. 
 
 ■f Events among the Quakers in Ireland. Anno 1804, J. Johnson, 
 Xondon. 
 
HICKSITE SECESSION. 131 
 
 inspiratioii of Scripture ; * by a refusal to comply 
 ■with the regulations of the body for ensuring the 
 orderly solemnization of marriages, &c., under the 
 notion that such regulations were " useless forms " f 
 and " superstitious practices ; " and ultimately by a 
 denial of the divinity of Christ, and of his atone- 
 ment for sin. J The major part of the Yearly 
 Meeting of Dublin held firmly by scriptural prin- 
 ciples, and the dissentients resigned their mem- 
 bership, or were disowned. The secession was 
 extensive; we cannot furnish the numbers of those 
 who were thus separated, but in some districts the 
 orthodox party lost all their ministers and elders, 
 and the Society at large was left weak, stripped, 
 and unsettled. 
 
 This unsettlement was not confined to Ireland; 
 it partially extended to England, and conduced, thirty 
 years later, to the extensive Hicksite secession in 
 America — originating, Hke that in Ireland, in giving 
 the " inward light " the place of Scripture, and in 
 exalting the "inward Christ," denying "Jesus of 
 Nazareth," his atonement for sin and oneness with 
 the Father ; and ultimately landipg many of its 
 authors in virtual infidelity. No secession of this 
 
 * Events Among the Quakers in Ireland, Appendix, p. 20, 
 t Ibid. p. 127. . t Ibid. p. 181, &c. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 QITAKEEISM : PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 cHaracter occurred in England; but the inadequate 
 declaration of the doctrine of justification hj faith, 
 on the part of not a few ministers, deprived their 
 representations of religion of that beneficent aspect, 
 which the practical acceptance of this cardinal 
 truth sheds on the Christian's pathway. This 
 defective theology, in conjunction with the high 
 importance attached to the maintenance of peculiar 
 modes of dress and address, and other points on 
 the outskirts of Christian practice, connected the 
 profession of Quakerism in the minds of the young, 
 with ideas of gloom and unreasonableness, to use 
 no stronger words, and partially explains the de^ 
 fection of so many of the children of Friends from 
 the faith of their fathers within the present century. 
 The same causes prepared the way for a reaction 
 in this country on the Hicksite heresy ia America, 
 occasioning the " Beaconite " secession in 1836, by 
 which a small number of persons, probably not 
 exceeding three hundred members in all, left the 
 Society, thmking its doctrines less evangelical than 
 those laid down in the New Testament. It is en- 
 tirely unnecessary to enter into the details of this 
 unhappy schism ; the time that has elapsed since its 
 occurrence is perhaps too short to allow of an inde- 
 pendent and altogether impartial judgment being 
 
PHILANTHROPY. 133 
 
 pronounced, concerning the motives and acts of the 
 parties concerned. On the one hand, it may he 
 safely conceded that there was in some localities 
 not a little to offend the exponents of evangelical 
 truth ; on the other, the favour accorded by the 
 great body of the Friends to religious writings 
 free from any savour of mediaeval mysticism, is a 
 token of general soundness in the essentials of 
 Christian truth. 
 
 These internal dissensions have had a blighting 
 effect on the Society, and have occasioned a very 
 considerable loss of members. 
 
 The philanthropic efforts in which the Society 
 of Friends engaged, towards the close of the last 
 century, have not been without an influence on its 
 subsequent history. When Benezet and Woolman 
 roused their brethren to a fuller recognition of 
 the " enormous sin " of negro slavery, the religious 
 services of the body gave but little employment to 
 such of its members as were not engaged in minis- 
 terial labour, and the Friends generally were able 
 to throw themselves without reserve into the anti- 
 slavery struggle, with a degree of benefit to humanity 
 which the world has generously recognized. The 
 sphere of philanthropic effort was rapidly widened 
 by the establishment of the Bible Society, the British 
 
134 QTTAKEEISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 and Fareigii School Society, &c.,* in botli of which 
 the Friends took an active part, also in the reform 
 of the criminal code, (pity they did not reform their 
 own criminal code ! ) and in other associations in 
 which Christians of different rehgious views were 
 able to nnite, for the attainment of important ends. 
 Very beneficial to those engaged in them have 
 these labours proved, and the amount of tangible 
 good that has been effected has probably never 
 been exceeded by any equal number of persons. 
 Not merely has benefit accrued, through the Chris- 
 tian labourer being strengthened by service, but 
 also the union with pious individuals of other de- 
 nominations has enlarged the heart and expanded 
 
 * It is worthy of note that the quiescent spirit of the Society 
 prevented its entering on the field of Sabhath-sohool instruction 
 till long after most other bodies. " Priends," it was stated in a 
 conference of teachers held at Bristol in 1852 (see Printed Report, 
 p. 53), had till recently "been rather adverse to young men 
 engaging in the work of First-day school teaching, because it was 
 thought that their religious character might be injured from 
 the want of sufficient opportunity for retirement and religious 
 reading." A correcter view and deeper knowledge, would have 
 shown that the young men were specially suffering from the want 
 of having their energies called out, as is done by Sabbath-school 
 teaching ; and that no better means could be devised for reme- 
 dying the want of aggressive action in the Society's arrangements. 
 The rapid extension of these schools within the last fifteen years, 
 and the general active encouragement given to them) indicate 
 a determination to repair, as far as is practicable, the previous 
 blunder. 
 
PHILANTHROPY, ETC. 135 
 
 tlie sympathies of men beyond the contracted circle 
 of their own little sect. Yet the tendency of these 
 engagements on the part of its members, has not 
 been to enlarge the borders of the Society. Some 
 of the service which it might itself have employed 
 with great benefit, has been diverted from that 
 channel ; and further,, from the attention of intelli- 
 gent Christian men being closely occupied with these 
 schemes of catholic philanthropy, their thoughts and 
 energies have not been given to consider the state of 
 things existing in the religious body of which they 
 ' formed a part ; otherwise we cannot account for tlie 
 continuance of such a number ef able and earnestly 
 minded men in the Society, who year after year 
 might have ascertained that its numbers were lessen- 
 ing, absolutely, as well as relatively to the general 
 population, and yet have made so little effort to 
 investigate the causes of this decline, or to re- 
 move them. One reason may probably exist, in the 
 absence of accurate information respecting the So- 
 ciety's numerical position. The Yearly Meeting re- 
 ceives no official census of its numbers, but whilst 
 a,imTially enumerating those who have joined it " by 
 convincement," and collecting all the minutiae relating 
 to distraints made from its members in their opposi- 
 tions to tithes, &c., it makes no inquiry as to the 
 
136 QTJAKEEISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 number of members lost by disownment or resigna- 
 tion. Had the Yearly Meeting been annually in- 
 formed, at the same time it heard of forty or fifty 
 convincements, that the disownments were double or 
 treble that number, the present state of things could 
 hardly have existed so long, and with so little of 
 movement respecting it. But unwelcome truths are 
 unpopular things; and it is not the first time a 
 church — ostrich-like — has buried its head in the 
 sand, turned away from the remembrance of its ail- 
 ment, and neglected to search out and to employ 
 the true remedy. 
 
 There is still another reason for this indifference 
 to diminishing numbers. Whilst their official docu- 
 ments continue to speak of Quakerism as " neither 
 more nor less than real Christianity in its purest 
 form, and without curtailment,"* a consciousness 
 has, nevertheless, possessed the minds of many of 
 its members, that as now developed and organized, 
 the Society is unsuited to be a direct agency in the 
 evangelization of the heathen, in the arousing and 
 enlightening of the ignorant masses of the population, 
 or even in the promulgation of its own most pro- 
 minent tenets ; and this has led persons to support 
 
 * Report of Committee of York Quarterly Meeting for visiting tlie 
 Meetings and Families of Friends within its Limits, 1855, p, 13, 
 
DRESS, LANGUAGE, ETC. 137 
 
 associations for the advocacy of their principles in 
 fragments, as a substitute for the spreading of "truth" 
 as a -whole, in the manner of the early Friends. On 
 this principle the " Peace Society " promulgates the 
 doctrine of the unlawfulness of war ; the " Society 
 for the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage 
 and Control " testifies against the support of religion 
 by the civil power ; and many honest Friends think 
 that the world is learning the doctrines of George 
 Fox one by one, and in due time will have learned 
 them all ; and so it does not matter so much if " our 
 little church" itself does not increase, "our prin- 
 ciples are spreading," " the world is becoming more 
 and more Friendly ! " This train of thought has 
 largely obtained of late years ; it harmonizes well 
 with the subjective character of modern Quakerism, 
 and we find it expressing itself in many pointless 
 platitudes ; " We are not a proselytizing people ; " 
 " Our condition results from individual unfaith- 
 fulness ; " " Numbers are not a correct test of 
 strength," &c. &c. 
 
 Connected with this branch of our subject is 
 the importance attached by the Friends to pecuhar 
 modes of dress and language. No one acquainted 
 with the manners of the Court, in the reigns of 
 Elizabeth a,nd James I., when " the dressing a 
 
138 QUAKEBISM: PAST AM) PRESENT. 
 
 fine lady was more complicated than rigging a 
 skip of war,"* can be surprised that the Puri- 
 tans testified against such immorality, or that the 
 early Quakers, numbering so many Puritans in 
 their ranks, should adopt their protest, and amplify 
 its limits, so as to include superfluity of language as 
 well as superfluity of dress within the range of its 
 applicationv They objected to the use of all merely 
 complimentary expressions, as well as to tiiat of the 
 plural" pronoun when addressing one individual only. 
 Some of their etymological scruples may now ex- 
 cite a smile; but the objects they desired to attain 
 were far from unimpcwtant, — ^these objects were sim- 
 plicity of dress and truthfulness of language* The 
 founders of Quakerism imposed no distinguishing 
 badge or costume on their followers— such a course 
 would have been thoroughly alien to their princi- 
 ples ; but non-compliance with ever-varying fashion, 
 and abstinence from ornament, very early made the 
 Friends partially recognizable by their attire. Some- 
 thing like a costume was thus unintentionally esta- 
 blished, which the second generation endeavoured 
 to maintain and enforce by sumptuary laws resem- 
 bling those of the English legislature at an earlier 
 period in their general character, as well as in their 
 • Pictorial Hietort/, book Tiii. p. 632. 
 
BEESS, LANGUAGE, ETC. 139 
 
 results — they were equally disregarded. In the 
 most degenerate days of the Society's history, a 
 considerable proportion of its members threw over- 
 board simplicity as well as peculiarity in their attire. 
 The stringent regulations of the succeeding period 
 naturally included dress and language within the 
 scope of their jurisdiction, and every congregation 
 had annually to report to the superior meetings as 
 to the observance of " plainness of speech, behaviour, 
 and apparel." The extent of importance attached to 
 the observance of these "peculiarities" (to borrow 
 their conventional cognomen) by many serious and 
 estimable men, will hardly be credited ; and ia the 
 endeavour to maintain them in their integrity, such 
 parties frequently placed themselves in very false 
 positions, and became the unintentional perpetrators 
 of serious mischief. The authorized documents of 
 the Society spoke only of "plainness " of dress, but 
 a rigid conventional meaning was attached to the 
 word, and parties not conforjuing to the standard 
 were regarded as " imfaithful," and were practically 
 excluded from the oflSces of the church, though 
 to the unprejudiced observer their attire might 
 be as "plain," or more so, than that of their 
 censors. 
 
 When George Fox argued for simplicity of attire. 
 
140 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 he was supported by Scripture, as well as by the 
 example of the early Christians, the Waldenses, 
 Lollards, &c.; but the idea of his successors, that 
 an outward badge or costume constituted a powerful 
 aid to virtue, by shielding its possessor against the 
 temptation of the world, had, as it appears to us, 
 but very limited support from revelation or expe- 
 rience, and was closely akin to those ascetic errors 
 that flourished amidst the fading glories of the 
 primitive Church. The importance attached to the 
 observance of the costume and to the peculiar 
 phraseology by the mediaeval Friends and theu" 
 successors, was but one branch of that fruitless 
 attempt at isolation from the world which we have 
 already adverted to. The object sought after was 
 excellent — the avoidance of temptation. The "lip 
 of truth" has taught the Christian constantly to 
 pray, "Lead us not into temptation," and that no-; 
 thing — ^not a right hand or a right eye — must be 
 retained if separating the soul from Christ. The 
 adoption of a costume is then a trifling sacrifice to 
 malce, if exemption from the besetments of personal 
 vanity, and all the evils incident to the love of 
 dress, may be so averted. But that it would faU, or 
 that it would introduce evils greater than it was 
 intended to obviate, might have been anticipated from 
 
DEESS, LANaUAGE, ETC. 141 
 
 the discrepancy between the human arrangement, of 
 erecting " an external bulwark from the world/' " a 
 hedge," &c., and that of the Gospel pjan, which, 
 first changing the heart with the affections, allows 
 the fruits of this change to manifest themselves 
 afterwards in the outward conduct. "I pray not 
 that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but 
 that thou shouldest keep them from the evil," was 
 the prayer of the Lord Jesus for His disciples ; and 
 throughout the whole of His teachings (and those 
 of the Apostle Paul), the idea that the Christian will 
 find his safety to depend in outward ordinances and 
 observances is steadily combated, the emphasis 
 being laid on the right cultivation of the heart, and 
 on the daily endeavour, under all circumstances, to 
 have " a conscience void of offence toward God and 
 toward men." The experience of the Friends has 
 not belied the apostolic statement that " self-chosen 
 worship and humiliation, and chastening of the 
 body," are impotent to ''check the indulgence of 
 fleshly passions."* When the maintenance of "plain- 
 ness" in dress is merged in conformity to a costume, 
 the effect of example is very much lost: the dress 
 of a policeman or of a Eoman Catholic ecclesiastic, 
 being confessedly a costume, is not imitated for that 
 
 * CoDybeare and Howson's Translation, Col. ii. 25. 
 
142 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 reason; it is meant to be a distinguishing mark, and 
 it operates as such. It is not the least of ihe dis- 
 crepancies between their theory and their practice, 
 that the Friends have thus very much nullified the 
 effect of their protest against extravagance of dress, 
 and that, whilst claiming to be pre-eminently the 
 exponents of the internal, heart-purifying, spiritual 
 nature of true religion, they should at the same 
 time have placed such reliance on " external forms," 
 as to have made the adoption of a certain dress and 
 the use of a set phraseology almost essential requisites 
 to membership in the body. In the multitudinous 
 pamphlets and letters which the discussion of this 
 subject has recently evoked, much reference is made 
 to the effect of the costume in repelling proselytes ; 
 and that this has been the actual result appears 
 to be well established- But more serious has been 
 its effects on the children of Friends: whilst some 
 have to rejoice in escaping, through this means, 
 temptations to which they might otherwise have 
 succumbed, others experience throughout Hfe the 
 evils attendant on that isolation from improving 
 society, to which they are consigned in early 
 life. " Again, that very feeling of peculiarity which 
 prevents some from associating with persons of 
 superior education to themselveSj is no barrier to 
 
DRESS, LANGUAGE, ETC. 143 
 
 others against an intercourse with those decidedly 
 their inferiors. The natural love of company leads 
 the child to seek associates ; but his fear of ridicule 
 prompts him to seek them amongst those, with whom 
 he feels that his superiority of position places him 
 above any fear of the expression of ridicule." * In 
 reading the recent animadversions of the newspaper 
 press, and of some of the leading literary organs 
 of the day, on modem extravagance in dress, we 
 hardly know whether most to regret the inatten- 
 tion with which many Churches have treated this 
 subject, or the mistakes of the Society of Friends 
 in their endeavours to grapple with it. In con- 
 clusion, it is needful to remark that the change 
 of sentiment and practice has latterly been so con- 
 siderable, that the preceding observations refer to 
 a bygone period rather than to the present time, 
 when some danger, from an inadequate appreciation 
 of Christian simplicity in dress and language, may 
 not unfairly be apprehended. 
 
 * Reasons for objecting to the Peculiar Practices and Opinions 
 of Friends with regard to Dr'Css and Mode of Address, hy Edward 
 Sewell, p. 9. 
 
144 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MODERN CAUSES OF THE SOCIETY'S DECLEUE, 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 Marriage regulations of the Society of Friends — George Fox's 
 doctrine as to marriage — He legislates for the Society — 
 "Mixed marriages " — ^Disownment becomes the stated penalty 
 for Marriage "contrary to rule" — ^Number of persons so dis- 
 owned in the nineteenth century — ^Infrequency of marriage 
 amongst the Friends. 
 
 " A wonderful picture of what good men may do, acting on 
 mistaken notions of duty, to destroy the very structure they are most 
 anxious to uphold," — John Bright. 
 
 When a historian of Quakerism arises capable of 
 doing justice to his subject, his revelations respect- 
 ing the marriage arrangements of the Society will 
 constitute a narrative of no ordinary interest. He 
 will have to tell how comprehensive and how holy 
 were the views of the early Friends respecting 
 marriage, and how boldly, yet how prudently, they 
 
MARRIAGE REGULATIONS. 145 
 
 carried them into effect ; he will faithfully relate the 
 evils resulting from a lax discipline in a lethargic 
 Church ; and he will have to paint in darkest colours 
 the far worse consequences resulting from the rigid 
 execution of unchristian laws. George Fox's oppo- 
 sition to any human priesthood, included the denial 
 of the right to marry by any " man-made minister : " 
 he held, however, that marriage was a religious 
 ordinance; and thus the Quakers were equally at 
 collision with the Popish doctrine of marriage being 
 a sacrament, dependent for its validity on the blessing 
 of the priest ; with the modification of this dogma 
 adopted by the English Church ; and with Crom- 
 well's Parliament, when it declared marriage to be 
 a civil contract. Under a deep conviction of the 
 truth of the principles he had embraced, George 
 Fox directed that marriages should take place in 
 meetings for Divine worship in the presence of nu- 
 merous witnesses, who subscribed their names] to the 
 marriage certificate in attestation of its genuineness. 
 He says : " We marry none, but are witnesses of it ;" 
 marriage being " God's joining, not man's." * This 
 intrepid defiance of existing usages and of legisla- 
 tive institutions was not made hastily, or without a 
 full comprehension of the consequences that might 
 » George Fox's Epistles, p. 280. 
 
 L 
 
146 QUAKEEISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 ensue.* We learn that Fox ascertained what the prac- 
 tice of the primitive Church had been, and he insisted 
 on scrupulous care being exercised by the Friends, to 
 prevent any just ground of accusation that their unions 
 were contracted in a disorderly or clandestine manner. 
 The most ample notice of an intended marriage was 
 given, not merely in the meetiogs of Friends, but 
 sometimes the expectant bridegroom made public pro- 
 clamation of his intentions at the market cross of the 
 town he resided in; committees appointed by monthly 
 meetings inq^uired into the parties' clearness from all 
 other matrimonial engagements, and lastly, the mar- 
 riage certificate was shown to a justice of the peace. 
 It was doubtless the completeness thus given to 
 their nuptial rites, disarming the laudable jealousy 
 of the civil power, that procured for the marriages 
 of Friends the recognition of legal validity when 
 the question was first raised before Chief Justice' 
 Hale. His decision was confirmed by other judges, 
 and at a recent date received the sanction of statute 
 law. 
 
 * These conseq^uences included not merely aspersions on the 
 validity of these marriages, and consec[uently on the legitimacy 
 of the offspring, hut several instances are recorded in which 
 parties married in Eriends' Meetings were imprisoned on that ac- 
 count alone (Besse's Sufferings, vol. ii. p. 103, edition of 1738), it 
 heing construed as an offence against the ecclesiastical goyern- 
 ment of the Church of England. 
 
MAERIAGE KEGUIATIONS. 147 
 
 Having run so great a risk in obtaining this 
 privilege, it could not be expected tbat the Friends 
 would show themselves very lenient towards those 
 of their number who married parties of other de- 
 nominations before a clergyman, not only because 
 such a course violated the Society's " testimony " 
 previously referred to, but also from a belief that 
 marriages between parties of different religious views 
 are, as a class, unfavourable to conjugal happiness. 
 Reason and experience aHke indicate that such must 
 often be the case : marriage between Christians and 
 the heathen was one of the trials of the primitive 
 Church; and evUs, similar in kind though smaller 
 in magnitude, have resulted ia later times where 
 there has been diversity of opinion and practice 
 between husband and wife on religious matters. 
 Thus it cannot but be regarded as within the legi- 
 timate range of a Church's duty, to endeavour to 
 prevent the formation of such unions. They were 
 not frequent between Friends and others in the 
 seventeenth century; when they did take place, 
 sometimes a "testimony of denial" was issued 
 against the offender, but the practice was not 
 uniform, and the number so separated from the 
 Society, previous to 1700, appears to have beSen 
 small. In the endeavour to ensure oneness of 
 
 t 2 
 
148 QUAIiERISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 religious conviction between parties intending to 
 marry, and in his opposition to the solemnization 
 of the rite by a clergyman, it accorded with George 
 Fox's comprehensive ideas to rely more on persua- 
 sive counsel, and on making the solemnization of 
 marriage in Friends' meeting-houses an easy pro- 
 cess, than on the operation of an ecclesiastical 
 penalty. Even when a monthly meeting did not 
 look favourably on a proposed marriage, either from 
 one of the parties being but little of a Friend, or 
 for other reasons, it usually thought it better to 
 allow the solemnization of the same sua more, rather 
 than drive the parties to the parish church. In 
 Fox's quaint phraseology, he wished, if it were 
 possible, "not to leave a hoof in Egypt."* 
 
 Yet he and the most thoughtful of his followers 
 must have been aware, that if the Society of Friends 
 was to be merely a sect, and still more if it was 
 to be only a small sect in the midst of a vast 
 surrounding population, its members would not 
 entirely marry amongst themselves. No attempt 
 at isolation in this respect has proved entirely suc- 
 cessful. It was but partially successful with the 
 Jewish nation, though du'ected by special Divine 
 command; and not more so with the early Chris- 
 * George Fox's Epistles, p. 280. 
 
« MIXED MARRIAGES." 149 
 
 tians, or with the Vaudois, whilst it has been very 
 unsuccessful with the Society of Friends. The only 
 part of its history in which these " mixed marriages " 
 have not been a constant source of trouble, was 
 during sixty or seventy years, in which Quakerism 
 was the prevailing faith in Pennsylvania, and some 
 adjoining States of North America. Samuel Bownas, 
 writing in 1728 of the great increase of Friends in 
 these parts, says, " Now the extraordinary increase 
 of professors is much to be attributed to the youth 
 retaining the profession of their parents, and marry- 
 ing such ; for, indeed, most of the people in Pennsyl- 
 vania are of this profession, as well as in the Jerseys 
 and Rhode Island, so that young people are not 
 under the temptation to marry such as are of dif- 
 ferent judgment, as in other parts."* In England 
 and Ireland, throughout the early part of the 
 eighteenth century, marriages between Friends and 
 others became increasingly frequent. The subject 
 is repeatedly referred to by the Yearly Meeting, 
 usually inciting monthly meetings to more rigour 
 in the exercise of the discipline on offenders. It 
 would appear that in some parts of the kingdom 
 no notice was taken of these marriages ; in others 
 a brief written acknowledgment from the party that 
 * Samuel Bownas' Journal, p. 233. 
 
150 QUAKERISM: PAST AKD PRESENT. 
 
 lie or she had broken the regulations of the Society, 
 with a few expressions of regret (often, we should 
 suppose, sufficiently ec[uivocal in their meaning), 
 was deemed an adequate apology. In other monthly 
 meetings, where more rigid disciplinarians might 
 he influential, disownment was the penalty inflicted 
 on any one contracting a " mixed marriage." 
 
 Precisely accordant with our previous statements 
 as to the tone of feehng prevailing after the disci- 
 plinary revival of 1760, we find an ever-increas- 
 ing reliance on the penal exercise of the discipline 
 as a preventive of these marriages. Probably it 
 is something more than an "undesigned coinci- 
 dence," (was it not the action of prevailing popular 
 opinion ?) that at the same period of time the British 
 Legislature was giving to the criminal code of the 
 country that Draconian character which required 
 Hie reforming labours of a RomUly and a Peel, 
 before it could be restored to any semblance of 
 the Christian standard. In 1752, monthly meet- 
 ings had been empowered to extend disownment 
 as well to "parents and guardians encouraging 
 mixed marriages, as to the parties actually con- 
 cerned in them."* Respecting which, Elizabeth 
 Fry remarks, " It is a most undue and unchristian 
 " Ruks of Discipline and Advices, p. 100. 
 
" MIXED MARRIAGES," ETC. 151 
 
 restraint, as far as I can judge of it."* In 1783, 
 monthly meetings are warned against accepting " in- 
 sincere acknowledgments" from parties who had so 
 married. 
 
 The disorders which it was hoped might be thus 
 averted were undoubtedly serious in their character 
 as well as in their extent. But the means employed 
 to remedy them were badly adapted to attain the 
 desired end. Had the framers of this penal code 
 been more deeply versed in the knowledge of the 
 human heart, they would have perceived that the 
 period of marriage is, of all others, the one in which 
 the attitude of the Church is most influential in 
 determining the subsequent relation between it and 
 its members. Surely the scene selected by tlie Lord 
 Jesus Christ himself for the performance of His first 
 miracle, when dwelling personally amongst men, and 
 the character of that miracle, might have taught the 
 obtusest mind, that Christianity was to present itself 
 in its most attractive guise at the solemnization of 
 marriage, and that the requirements of the Church 
 should be simple, indulgent, and attractive, rather 
 than harsh, complex, and repelling. Unhappily, 
 this Divine example has been nearly thrown away 
 on the Society of Friends. Even as regards the 
 
 * Life of Elizabeth Fry, 1856, p. 294. 
 
152 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 marriages solemnized according to its regulations, 
 cumbrous forms were maintained long after the 
 necessity for them had ceased; and whilst the 
 Yearly Meeting directs certain practical '' advices " 
 on the right performance of the varied duties of 
 life (excellent in sentiment and beautiful in expres- 
 sion), to be frequently read in its meetings for dis- 
 cipline, they are silent on the subject of marriage ; 
 and in none of the Society's published documents, 
 does it help its junior members to a knowledge of 
 what are the conditions of happiness in married life. 
 Thus the natm-al associations of the younger Friends 
 who attend meetings for discipline, are connected 
 with the disownment of those marrying contrary 
 to rule (cases of this sort being constantly on " the 
 books"), and with the yearly answering of the 
 harshly worded " query," " Is early care taken to 
 admonish such as appear inclined to marry in a 
 manner contrary to the rules of our Society, and 
 in due time to deal with such as persist in refusing 
 to take counsel?"* 
 
 Experience might have taught the Quaker legis- 
 lators of the eighteenth century, that the direction 
 of mankind in the affair of marriage, is one of the 
 most difficult and delicate tasks that can be under- 
 * Book ofSules and Advices, p. 218, Query xiii. 
 
DISOWNMENTS FOE MAEEIAGE. 153 
 
 taken, and that it is pre-eminently one in which, 
 whilst men may be influenced by Christian counsel, 
 by public opinion, by education, and by persuasion, 
 it is also one in which they will not be driven or 
 dragooned. But the latter policy is short, sum- 
 mary, and easy ; the former requires ability, dis- 
 crimination, patience, and strong faith in principles. 
 The latter was chosen by the Quakers of the "middle 
 age," and has been maintained, with little relaxation, 
 to the present day. We consider it as the most 
 influential proximate cause of the numerical decline 
 of the Society. 
 
 What number of members were separated on this 
 account during the eighteenth century is not known, 
 but it is proved to have been very large indeed. 
 Within the present half-century the numbers have 
 been ascertained with substantial accuracy during 
 the late agitation of this question. By examina- 
 tion of the records of numerous monthly meetings, 
 it appears that in many of them one-third of 
 those who marry, select partners not of their own 
 community: thus, from 1837 to 1854, in the largest 
 monthly meeting in England (comprising the chief 
 towns in the west of Yorkshire), one hmidred and 
 thirteen Friends married agreeably to the Society's 
 regulations, and sixty-one contrary to them; these 
 
154 QUAKEBISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 last being in consequence all disowned. The his- 
 tory of Ackworth School scholars, drawn principally 
 from the middle classes of society, and from all 
 parts of the kingdom, gives similar results. Of eight 
 hundred and fifty-one hoys educated in that esta- 
 blishment whose marriages have been ascertained, five 
 hundred and forty-seven were "in accordance with 
 rule," three hundred and four in opposition. Other 
 evidence might be adduced, all tending to show that 
 about one-third of the Friends who marry, choose 
 partners not members of the Society, and in taking 
 that step lose their membership. From the records of 
 the Society, and the reports of the Registrar-General, 
 it appears that between 1800 and 1855, four thousand 
 four hundred and ninety-nine marriages were solem- 
 nized in Quaker meeting-houses, representing eight 
 thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight persons; and 
 it follows from the evidence jvist given that about half 
 that number, or upwards of four thousand persons, 
 will have married contrary to the Society's regula- 
 tions during the same period, and in consequence 
 have been disowned.* Nor will the number rein- 
 stated in membership materially affect our calcula- 
 tions ; it is very small, probably not at all exceeding 
 
 "■ See Statements on the Marriage Regulations of the Societi/ of 
 Friends, by J. E. 
 
DISOWNMENTS POR MARRIAGE. 155 
 
 the number who voluntarily resign their member- 
 ship when intending to marry contrary to rule, and 
 so do not appear in these numbers. In fact, it could 
 hardly be otherwise; persons cast out of a church 
 for such a reason, having committed no moral offence, 
 it may even be for an act that has added greatly to 
 their happiness, and on which the blessing of Heaven 
 has rested, are not usually eager to return to a com- 
 munity which so curtails the religious liberty of its 
 members. Many feel they have been harshly dealt 
 with, and retire in disgust. Others go to swell the 
 ranks of those " in profession," but not in " member- 
 ship." These persons constitute nearly one-third of 
 all the worshippers in the Society's meeting-houses, 
 and are more of Friends than of any other profession ; 
 schools are supported specially for their children, and 
 in other ways they are recognized by the Society, 
 yet if a "member" marries a party so circumstanced 
 disownment is probably the consequence. Disown- 
 ment' — ^the heaviest penalty imposable by a Christian 
 church — is inflicted for marriage, where there may 
 have been complete identity of religious feeling 
 between the parties, and simply because they were 
 married at the Registrar's office instead of the 
 meeting-house. Could aught be further removed 
 from the ideas of him who wished " not to leave a 
 
156 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 hoof in Egypt ? " Surely ecclesiastical history does 
 not present a more palpable case of failure, in endea- 
 vouring to attain a desirable end through wrong 
 means. Nor does it, we apprehend, record another 
 instance of so deliberate an act of suicide on the part 
 of a Church, as to persevere for a series of years in 
 disowning from one-(iuarter to one-third of all its 
 members who married. The fact that these mar- 
 riages increase in frequency rather than the con- 
 trary, and that disownment no longer implies any 
 necessary connection with moral turpitude, is a tell- 
 ing proof of the impotency of an excessive penalty, 
 to prevent the conunission of an act not morally 
 wrong, as well as of the extent to which a powerfiil 
 weapon for church disciphne may be rendered useless 
 by unwise or indiscriminate application. 
 
 We make no apology for occupying so much 
 space with this portion of our subject, for it will be 
 at once seen, that the disownment of four thousand 
 adult members just at that period of life when most 
 likely to add to the strength of the Society, more 
 than explains its numerical diminution during the 
 present century ; for if we assume that one quarter, 
 or even one-half of these persons would have left it 
 if they had not been ejected, the natural increase of 
 popiilation in the remainder would have more than 
 
INFREQUENCr OF MAEEIAGE. 157 
 
 compensated for the diminution of five thousand four 
 hundred members, the number by which the Society- 
 appears to have been reduced since the year 1800. 
 Well may we adopt the exclamation of a talented 
 American authoress : " Rich indeed must be that 
 Church which can spare such members for such a 
 cause." 
 
 In connection with this subject it may be conve- 
 nient to call the attention of the reader to the signi- 
 ficant fact, that notwithstanding the entire absence 
 of destitution, marriage in the Society of Friends 
 is one-fifth less frequent than in the population at 
 large.* The causes of this curious statistical fact 
 are not difficult to discover. The superior edu- 
 cation bestowed on the children of the poor, has so 
 diminished that class of persons, as almost to have de- 
 stroyed the stratum of society amongst the Friends, 
 in which marriages are usually most frequent, 
 and in which they are contracted earliest in life. 
 This we take to be the chief reason ; but there 
 can be no doubt the impediments placed in the 
 way of marriage within the Society by the fewness 
 of its members, and the consequent limited range 
 of choice open to parties, especially at the two ex- 
 tremes of the social scale in which fewest Friends 
 * See Note 3, page 77. 
 
158 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 are found — the affluent and the poor — renders it 
 impossible for many persons to find suitable part- 
 ners, and therefore, if unwilling to lose their mem- 
 bership, they remain unmarried. It was said by 
 John Bright, M.P., in a late Yearly Meeting, that 
 " strangers becoming ace[uainted with the social 
 condition of the Society of Friends, express great 
 astonishment at the number of competent, clever 
 women amongst Friends suitable to make excellent 
 wives, and to adorn any position, who nevertheless 
 remain unmarried." As tliis infrequency of mar- 
 riage represents an equivalent infrequency of births, 
 another cause of the numerical decline of Quakerism 
 is thus clearly exhibited. 
 
159 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SXJMMABY OF PRECEDING ARGUMENT. 
 
 " There is nothing so revolutionary, because there is nothing so 
 unnatural and so convulsive to society, as the strain to keep things 
 fixed when all the world is, by the very law of its creation, in 
 eternal progress ; and the cause of all the evils in the world may 
 be traced to that natural but most deadly error of human indolence 
 and corruption, that our business is to preserve and not to improve.'' 
 — Db. Aknold. 
 
 Otje task, now drawing to a close, has been a some- 
 what ungrateful one. The nature of the subject has 
 compelled us to dwell chiefly on the defects of 
 Quakerism, to disclose its weak points, to exhibit 
 the mistakes of its defenders, and to trace the con- 
 nection existing between such mistakes and its. pre- 
 sent decrepit condition. It would have been a 
 more inviting employment, but a less useful one, to 
 have unfolded the happier aspects under which 
 Quakerism has displayed itself; to have shown how 
 much it really has accomplished for the cause of 
 truth, and how beneficially it has influenced the 
 
160 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 theology of the whole professing Church ; to have 
 told of its noble struggle for liberty of conscience, 
 of its practical philanthropy, of its zeal for popular 
 education, of its unfaltering protest against war ; or 
 to have painted a lovely, because a faithful, picture of 
 the exceeding happiness that dwells round hundreds 
 of ''Friends' firesides." But such a course would 
 have been useless to the Society, and it might have 
 been mischievous, by stimulating the error too pre- 
 valent amongst its members, of relying on the prestige 
 of their predecessors, and of adducing the numerous 
 bright examples of catholic piety and Christian self- 
 devotedness, who within the present century have 
 adorned their section of the Church, as a sufficient 
 answer to all who speak of lessening numbers and 
 declining strength. 
 
 Before laying down the pen, let us endeavour, as 
 succinctly as may be, to review the ground traversed 
 in the preceding pages, and to present, in a condensed 
 form, tlao causes that appear to have prevented the 
 realization of those lofty hopes which inspired the 
 bosoms of the "early Friends." And not the " early 
 Friends" alone, but impartial and philosophic con- 
 temporaries of other persuasions, might reasonably 
 have predicted a far brighter destiny for Quakerism 
 than that which it has actually fulfilled. The con- 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 161 
 
 jectm'e may be permitted, that amongst the crowd 
 who thronged Bunhill Fields on Friday morning, 
 the 16th Novemher, 1690, assisting at the obsequies 
 of George Fox, and listening to the polished eloquence 
 of William Penn, there may have been at least 
 one individual, who seriously pondered the probable 
 future of the system, whose founder had now passed 
 from among men, but whose name was indehbly 
 "inscribed in the Pantheon of history." Success, 
 such an observer might have supposed, would attend 
 the further development of an outburst of Chris- 
 tianity so vigorous as Quakerism appeared in 1690, 
 which, after forty years of incessant persecution, 
 could point to an organized body of sixty or seventy 
 thousand adherents in Great Britain and Ireland, to 
 flourishing congregations in other parts of Europe, 
 and to more than one great colony it had founded in 
 the Western World. Surely now that persecution was 
 abated, the experience of the new Society would be 
 like that of the churches in Palestine, when they "had 
 rest," and " walking in the fear of God, and in the 
 comfort of the Holy Ghost," be " multiplied." Our hy- 
 pothetical philosopher might have argued, that a faith 
 which promised to its recipients an inward light, guid- 
 ing them through the perplexities of time to the glories 
 of eternity — a faith which rejected everything savour- 
 
 M 
 
162 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 ing of priestcraft, teaching every Christian that he 
 was a priest, capahle of holding immediate communion 
 with "the Father of spirits" — a faith claiming the 
 most absolute liberty of conscience, fully recognizing 
 the brotherhood of man, and assigning a higher social 
 and religious standing to woman than she had ever 
 before enjoyed; — such a faith would surely extend 
 amongst men, notwithstanding the strict morality 
 and personal sacrifices which it demanded of its fol- 
 lowers. Much more in the same strain he might 
 bave justly argued, and he might have referred to 
 the evidences of reality already famished by the 
 Quaker faith, in the support it had afforded to deli- 
 cate women and children, as well as to soldiers who 
 iad " charged on Tilly's line " in their unflinching. 
 Christian endurance of protracted persecution. Spe- 
 culations like these would not have been unreasonable. 
 How have they been realized ? 
 
 We have shown that as regards numbers they have 
 been entirely falsified; that the Society of Friends 
 attained its numerical meridian in this island about 
 the year 1680, aiid that in the next one hundred and 
 twenty years its decline was continuous, reducing its 
 numbers by the year 1800 to one-half of what they 
 had !l^een at their highest point During the present 
 century this decline has progressed stiU further, and 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 163 
 
 there are now not more than twenty-six thousand 
 persons in Great Britain and Ireland professing with 
 Friends. Within the last one hundred and eighty- 
 years the population of the United IQngdom has 
 trebled, but the Society of Friends has diminished 
 nearly two-thirds. To the author's mind, the causes 
 described in the preceding pages amply explain this 
 extensive decline ; and at the termination of his in- 
 vestigations, while still lamenting the feet, he has 
 altogether ceased to marvel at the great diminution 
 of the Society of Friends. 
 
 Apprehending that any inquiry into the working 
 of Quakerism would be defective and unsatisfactory 
 which left out of sight the circumstances attendant 
 on its origin, we endeavoured at the outset to com- 
 press into one brief chapter some of the salient fea- 
 tures of that memorable epoch, which was drawing 
 to a close when the Society of Friends arose. The 
 Enghsh Reformation was a movement promoted for 
 various objects, and carried on by very different 
 agents; it accomplished much for the interests of 
 religion ; it purified the Anglican Church from the 
 grosser errors of the Romish apostasy, and for so 
 doing it demands the lively gratitude of every Pro- 
 testant ; but in many respects it disappointed the ex- 
 pectations of its best friends. It deprived the clergy 
 
 M 2 
 
164 QUAKERISM : PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 of the mediatorial powers claimed by the Roman 
 Catholic priesthood, but it left them a body of men 
 distinct from the laity, occripying a position, by virtue 
 of their sacerdotal office, superior to that of other 
 members of the Church — a position that the Friends 
 have ever regarded as inconsistent with the fiill re- 
 cognition of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Glancing 
 at the history of England in the reign of Elizabeth, 
 James I., and Charles I., the outside idea of religion 
 entertained by the ' politicians of those times at- 
 tracted attention, as did also the double aspect of 
 social life — the puritanic apd the licentious — pre- 
 sented in the earlier part of the seventeenth century. 
 Tracing the operation of these circumstances consen- 
 taneously with the stirring political events of the age, 
 its incessant theological controversies, the general 
 unsettlement in religious opinions, the Judaizing theo- 
 logy and practices of the Puritans (more offensively 
 developed in the latter years of their history), we ob- 
 served the preparation that was taking place in the 
 minds of multitudes, for the reception of a spiritual 
 declaration of Christianity. It is then, no matter of 
 surprise that George Fox foimd ready listeners to his 
 denunciations of "forms and shadows," of priestcrafi;, 
 and, in short, of all that seemed to him to interpose 
 between God and man, when, emerging from the men- 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 165 
 
 tal exercises that had so long overwhelmed him, he 
 awoke to the perception of the excellency of spiritual 
 piety, and taught that its internal heart-work was the 
 essential part of true religion. His mission was to 
 direct men to the " Spirit of Christ, in their own 
 hearts ;" to bring them in mind and conscience imme- 
 diately to Christ as their Lord and Master ; to incite 
 them to obey the teachings of the Holy Spirit indivi- 
 dually manifested in all things, that so their religion 
 might be a positive, practical, ever-present power, 
 influencing the minutest actions of life, and consti- 
 tuting a standing protest against all merely specu- 
 lative or theoretic systems. This spiritual conception 
 of Christianity was the keystone of Quakerism. It 
 came upon the primitive Friends with all the fresh- 
 ness of a new discovery, though they steadily declared 
 it was no new doctrine they preached ; that they were 
 merely instrumental in reviving forgotten truths; 
 that they were called to complete the work of re- 
 formation from Popery, left unfinished by their pre- 
 decessors. Quakerism was the last wave of the 
 Reformation. 
 
 In a certain sense, the greatest truths of religion 
 are the simplest — so simple, that "wayfaring men, 
 though fools," receive them, when enlightened from 
 above, in all their life-giving efficacy, equally with 
 
166 QUAKEEISM: PAST AKD PEESENT, 
 
 the profoxmdest philosopher ; and yet it would seem 
 as if the very greatness of a truth exposed it to in- 
 creased danger of distortion and misapprehension. 
 What doctrine of Christianity more vital than "jus- 
 tificatioa by faith"? but what doctrine has been more 
 obscured and perverted? Have any heresies been 
 more extensive than those relating to the Divinity 
 of Jesus Christ? and is not Mahometanism itself a 
 perversion of that fundamental truth — the Unity of 
 God ? In like manner, " that crowning blessing of 
 the Gospel, the dispensation of the Spirit,"* would 
 seem to be peculiarly liable to misapprehension, 
 and to erroneous or ill-proportioned exposition. It 
 has been a prominent object of the present essay to 
 prove that, in failing fully to discern, or accept, the 
 divinely appointed conditions under which the teach- 
 ings of the Holy Spirit are ordinarily administered, 
 the founders of Quakerism umconscioBsly implanted 
 those seeds of decay which — ^ntirtured by successive 
 generations — have borne their natural and destructive 
 fruits. 
 
 Whilst the doctrine of "the indwelling Word" was 
 additional to, and not in substitution of, their pre- 
 vious theology, it appears to the writer, that the 
 early Friends, in magnifying a previously slighted 
 * Caird's Sermons, p. 32. 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 167 
 
 truth, fell into the natural error of giving it rela- 
 tivelj an undue place, so depriving their represen- 
 tations of Christian truth, of the symmetry they 
 would otherwise have possessed, and influencing 
 their practices and those of their successors in a 
 twofold manner, negatively as well as positively. 
 Under the latter head we examined the Society's 
 practice in refusing to pay tithes and other eccle- 
 siastical demands, its mode of worship, its views 
 respecting preaching, prayer, the disuse of symbolic 
 rites, &c. ; under the former, or negative influence, 
 its disparagem*ent of the human reason, its once 
 inadequate estimate of the value of Holy Scripture, 
 and its seclusive system of church government. 
 Not only did the founders of Quakerism organize 
 their Church in conformity with the belief, that the 
 existence of a human hierarchy militates against the 
 fuU acknowledgment of Christ as the only high 
 priest and head of His Church, governing it imme- 
 diately by His Spirit, and constituting the entire 
 company of believers a holy priesthood, but they 
 also refused to make any pecuniary payments for the 
 support of a humanly appointed ministry. A great 
 proportion of the first Friends had been Puritans; 
 and whilst the faith they adopted might be regarded 
 as a reaction from Puritanism, they carried with them 
 
168 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 into the new Society many of their former ideas 
 and practices, and much of the Puritan phraseology. 
 Amongst these ideas was a strong belief in the 
 authority of the Church to direct the conduct of 
 its members in external matters of secondary im- 
 portance. Thus, whilst claiming from the civil 
 power the utmost liberty of conscience, they did 
 not always allow it to their own followers, but 
 made obedience to the regulations of the ''Yearly 
 Meeting" an essential of church fellowship — even 
 when these regulations were destitute of direct 
 scriptural authority. This contraction of the basis 
 on which Christian fellowship rests, has been one of 
 the weakest points of Quakerism. "We have adverted 
 to it more than once ; and, in connection with tithes, 
 church-rates, &c., have expressed the opinion that 
 serious injury has been inflicted by compelling per- 
 sons, irrespective of individual conviction, to refuse 
 the payment of these pecuniary charges. 
 
 The same views which occasioned the Friends 
 thus strenuously to resist payments for the support 
 of a clerical order, determined their own mode of 
 public worship. Recognizing no one as authorized 
 to preach or prophesy, except under the immediate 
 direction of the Holy Spirit, no one is preappointed 
 to minister to his brethren in meetings for Divine 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 169 
 
 •worship; but the whole congregation sits down in 
 silence, waiting upon God, and any one believing 
 himself required to preach, or to offer vocal prayer, 
 is at liberty to do so. We presented extensive evi- 
 dence, proving how numerous were the ministers at 
 the rise of the Society, and how much the meet- 
 ings for worship at that time were occupied with 
 vocal exercises, and contrasted them with those of 
 after times, which are frequently silent, sabbath 
 after sabbath, for months together. The injurious 
 results of the absence of vocal instruction, in making 
 the worship of God specially distasteful to the young 
 and the unconverted, is too obvious to require elabo- 
 rate proof. Regarding silent waiting on God as one 
 form, and perhaps the highest, in which the adora- 
 tion of the heart may be offered to Him, we appre- 
 hend the Friends have greatly erred in maintaining it 
 to be the only form of worship which He accepts, and 
 that from its being adapted only to certain orders 
 and conditions of mind, the character of public wor- 
 ship, as it is now ordinarily presented in the meet- 
 ings of the Friends, constitutes an important cause 
 of the fewness of their numbers. It is admitted 
 by Robert Barclay, in his celebrated Apology, that 
 some human arrangements are needful for the per- 
 formance of public worship ; and these arrangements 
 
170 QXJAKEEISM: PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 not being defined in Scripture, their precise extent 
 and character is a question not necessarily of prin- 
 ciple, but of degree, to be determined by observation 
 and experience. 
 
 A striking extract from George Fox's Journal 
 showed how his attention was directed to the para- 
 lysing influence of an eagerness to be rich in 
 dwarfing the gift of the ministry, and preventing 
 individuals from entering on its exercise; the pre- 
 valence of that commercial prosperity to which the 
 profession of Quakerism is specially favourable, has 
 continued to operate, and, perhaps in an equal or 
 greater degree, the existence of unhealthy ideas as 
 to the high amount of spiritual direction required 
 to authorize Gospel ministry, and a deficient percep- 
 tion of the difference between "prophesying" and 
 " religious teaching." During the lifetime of George 
 Fox, his personal influence was exerted to stimu- 
 late, though at the same time to regulate, minis- 
 terial labours ; but in the course of the eighteenth 
 century, when the fervour of the body cooled, when 
 its aggressive action ceased, the influence of the 
 Church was exerted in a direction contrary to that 
 indicated, both by revelation and experience, as most 
 conducive to the maintenance of a healthy and 
 powerful ministry. Even in apostolic times it was 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTEE. 171 
 
 needfel to stir men up to desire spiritual gifts, to 
 "coTct the gift of prophesying,"* and to "make 
 full proof of their ministry."t If in those days 
 of Pentecostal effusions, and of lively, loving zeal, 
 ministerial action required to be stimulated rather 
 than repressed, how unwise is a policy which, in 
 a time of religions Inkewarmness, does aught to 
 discourage Ute preaching of the Gospel ! Such, we 
 believe, was the unintentional effect of the Quaker 
 teaching and legislation of the eighteenth century, 
 and such must continue to be the effect of claiming 
 a degree of authority for the exercise of Gospel 
 ministry, unsanctioned by Scripture. Except in the 
 Society's first rise, the gift of religious teaching has 
 also been much neglected, and it cannot be doubted 
 that this neglect has induced very prejudicial results. 
 The New Testament so fully recognizes "teaching " 
 as one of the gifts, not merely of temporary con- 
 tinuance, like that of " tongues," but of permanent 
 necessity, thait no Church can neglect its exercise 
 with impunity; and its absence was specially in- 
 jurious to a body whose public ministry was less 
 intellectual in its character, than that of most other 
 Churches. 
 
 Everything which militates against the mainte- 
 * 1 Cor. xii. 31. t 2 Tim, iv. 5. 
 
172 QUAKEBISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 nance of personal piety within a Church, is necessarily 
 an occasion of its decline, both in numbers and in- 
 fluence ; and connected with the passive character of 
 its public worship, the declension of its ministry, and 
 the neglect of the gift of teaching, was an inadequate 
 use of the privilege of prayer, originating, like the 
 points above enumerated, in exaggerated expectations 
 of the extent and character of immediate Divine 
 action on the mind and feelings. Truly it is only by 
 the help of the Spirit that men can " pray, and pray 
 aright;" but when this doctrine has been so urged 
 as to lead persons to expect sensible intimations of its 
 . being a duty to pray, instead of finding the all-suffi- 
 cient warrant in the sense of need (a sense begotten 
 by the Holy Spirit), it has occasioned some, through 
 fear of praying amiss, to neglect prayer altogether. 
 Extracts from the Society's own documents prove 
 that this result has been experienced by its mem- 
 bers. 
 
 The Society of Friends differs in its practice from 
 most other Churches, by rejecting the symbolic rites 
 of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Without enter- 
 ing into the merits of the controversy, whether the 
 continued celebration of these rites is authorized by 
 Scripture or not, we instanced the practice of the 
 Society, in making their non-observance an essential 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 173 
 
 of church fellowship, as another illustration of un- 
 wisely narrowing the basis on which that fellowship 
 rests. 
 
 The division we have attempted to draw between 
 the positive and negative results of unduly exalting 
 the doctrine of the " inward light," is a somewhat 
 arbitrary one, and the propriety of assigning the 
 disparagement of reason to the negative class, may 
 be questioned, inasmuch as its effects can be traced 
 through many ramifications, of doctrine and of 
 practice. Instances might be multiplied from the 
 voluminous writings of George Fox, and stiU more 
 so from those of his colleagues, showing that they 
 sometimes wrote and acted under the idea that, by 
 silencing the reason as well as the natural will, and 
 by assigning a very subordinate position to the exer- 
 cise of the intellectual faculties in everything con- 
 nected with rehgion, they honoured God, and made 
 way for the immediate operations of His Spirit. 
 From the analogy of nature, and from the ordinary 
 method of the Divine government, we deduced the 
 conclusion that God rarely supersedes His own works 
 by the immediate interpositions of His providence ; 
 but that while every good thing in the outward 
 creation, or in the "work of religion in the soul," 
 comes from Him, He is usually pleased to work 
 
174 QUAKEEISM: PAST AOT) PRESENT. 
 
 instrumentally, and to bestow tke help of His Spirit 
 in unison with the diligent exercise of the mental 
 faculties. We apprehend that the disregard of this 
 great fact, and the consequent neglect of the cultur-e 
 of the understanding in connection with religion, 
 accounts for many of the anomalies of Quakerism, 
 and is an influential cause of its declension. It has 
 a close connection with the want of religious activity 
 in those important departments of service already 
 referred to, and we observed its effect in almost 
 ignoring the aesthetic element in man's mental con- 
 stitution. From the measure of Quakerism being 
 thus smaller than that of Christianity — ^from only ad- 
 dressing itself to parts of human nature, instead of to 
 the whole, its powers of adaptation were limited, its 
 general diffusion was restrained, and hitherto, it has 
 been nearly confined within the limits of the Anglo- 
 Saxon family. 
 
 The contracted, legal use of the Scriptures by the 
 Puritans, explains why the " early Friends," deeply 
 conversant with the sacred volume themselves, and 
 constantly appealing to it, were yet so jealous in 
 maintaining its inferiority " to the Spirit that gave 
 It forth ;" and though this mode of spealpng might be 
 harmless to them, and not without its use to their 
 Puritan opponents, yet, when it became part of a 
 
COKCLUDING CHAPTER. 175 
 
 traditional pliraseology — ^when the Bible was not read 
 in meetings for worshipj nor regularly in the domestic 
 circle — the consequences, by allowing a wide-spread 
 ignorance of scriptural truth, were most hurtful to 
 the growth of vital religion. To this cause must be 
 attributed not a little of the lethargy of the eighteenth 
 century, as well as the origin of those desolating 
 heresies which have distracted and enfeebled the 
 Quaker churches of Ireland and America. Family 
 Scripture readings having become general within 
 the last fifty years, the evil here described is greatly 
 diminished, and is now confined within very narrow 
 limits. 
 
 Somewhat resembhng its practice in relation to 
 the Scriptures, was the course pursued by the So- 
 ciety of Friends in regard to education. Detailing 
 its experience in this particular, we noticed that the 
 confusion of idea, resulting from mistaken views as 
 to the immediate teaching of the Spirit, assumed a 
 dangerous and enthusiastic form in the early years 
 of the Society's history ; some parents professing to 
 believe, that by omitting to train or instruct their 
 children, they favoured the immediate teachings oi 
 the Spirit of God. Extracts from George Fox's 
 Epistles were adduced, in which he grapples with 
 this delusion ; he ever insisted on the importance of 
 
176 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 sound religious education, and we noticed some of the 
 steps he took to promote it. His successors con- 
 tinued their labours for its advancement, with 
 limited success, until the foundation of Ackworth 
 School, in 1779. Very unfayourahle was the posi- 
 tion of children in relation to education before that 
 time, and we unite in the opinion expressed by 
 writers of that period, that to the want of careful 
 religious education, much of the loss of members 
 in the eighteenth century may be attributed. In 
 the present century education has been greatly im- 
 proved in quality, and extended in amount, and 
 we drew attention to the economic facts, that this 
 diffusion of intelligence had lessened the number 
 of poor, stimulated the emigration of young men 
 from the agricultural districts, diminished the fre- 
 quency of marriage, and the consequent frequency 
 of births ; and had thus, whilst conferring im- 
 mense benefit on the Society at large, been the 
 unlocked for cause of lessening its numerical 
 strength. The large number of Ackworth scholars 
 who, on attaining to maturity, leave the Church 
 which has. educated them, has been incidentally 
 mentioned in another part of our paper,* and our 
 educational notice would be imperfect were no allu- 
 * See Note 11, p. 84. 
 
CONCLUDINa CHAPTER, 177 
 
 sion made to a serious defect at one time existing in 
 its character, though at the present day one of 
 greatly diminished importance. It has been observed 
 by authors without the pale of the Society of Friends, 
 as well as by judicious members of that community, 
 that isolation from evil, rather than a preparation of 
 the heart to resist evil, has been too much sought after. 
 To magnify the benefits of a " guarded education," 
 was natural to those who sought safety in "hedges" 
 and " external bulwarks ; " but if the evil born 
 within the human heart be not restrained by Chris- 
 tian principle — if revealed truth be not intelligibly 
 taught — when children grow to be men and women, 
 they must inevitably find that the endeavour of their 
 friends to screen them from evil, is no effectual pro- 
 tection against the allurements to vice with which 
 Satan besets their path. 
 
 Whilst the causes which have been enumerated 
 go far to explain that declension in piety, which 
 succeeded the fervour of primitive Quakerism, we 
 pause when entering on the second epoch of its 
 history, to note that the most ample effusions of 
 the Holy Spirit have rarely extended beyond a 
 period of forty years ; and whilst in the experience 
 of the Friends we are able to trace with unusual 
 clearness the operation of secondary causes, it must 
 
 N 
 
178 QUAKEEISM : PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 not be QTerlooked that tte first apostles of Quaker- 
 ism enjoyed a larger measure of spiritual; life- and 
 power than was continned to their successors. 
 Regarding the action of causes w;hich are without 
 the bounds of ma,nlsc control, conjointly with the 
 more obvious, ones that have been adverted toj we 
 cannot be surgrised> that the Socifity, when no longer 
 kept watchful by persecution, sank into a state of 
 lukewarmness ;. its continuance in such a condition 
 during the first half of the eighteenth century being 
 favoured by a like condition in the other Chiurches 
 of Great Britain, national and dissenting. During, 
 this dark period, birthright membership almost im- 
 perceptibly established itself. The consequences of 
 this departure firom the New Testament idea of a 
 Church have,- as it appears to the author, been ex- 
 tensive and of serious magnitude. Mot only does 
 it induce the retention of lifeless members in the 
 body, who are at liberty to influence its disciphne 
 and internal government, and for whose conduct it 
 is to a certain extent responsible ; not, only does 
 it make " membership " liable to be esteemed a 
 burden instead, of a privilege, but it also creates 
 a line of distinction in congregations of a most 
 artificial character ; and occasions difficulties in 
 respect to the oversight, education, relief, and 
 
aQKCtHDrifG chaptee. i79 
 
 marriage arrangements of non-members. The here- 
 ditary character it impressed on Quakerism increased 
 the tendency which it abeady possessed' to exclu- 
 sivenesSi and is one cause of its nonrproseljjrtizing 
 character. 
 
 Even when no connection can he discoTeredy it is 
 interesting to observe historical synchronisms; and 
 it is a suggestive fact that contemporaneous with the 
 labours of Whitfield and the Wesleys, an extensive 
 revival took place in Quakerism. In 1760, at the 
 suggestion of a stranger from America, the Lon- 
 don Yearly Meeting deputed a. number of its most 
 earnest members to visit all its subordinate meet- 
 ings, and to endeavour to resuscitate the discipline 
 of the Churchi The character of this elaborate 
 system, as organized by Greorge" Pox, we have 
 already described. Whilst well adapted for main- 
 taining the internal purity of the body, we drew 
 the attention of the reader to its seclusive, non- 
 aggressive, non-centralized constitution. When first 
 organized;, some aggressive action was associated- 
 with its- working ; but this did not long continue, 
 and in the revival of the eighteenth century most 
 of the primacry defects of this disciplinary system 
 present themselves in an aggravated, form, and. 
 without the counteracting influence of the earlier 
 
 K 2 
 
180- QUAKERISM : PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 period. Whilst noting the errors of the disciplina- 
 rians of the eighteenth century — ^which we believe 
 to, have been neither few nor small — a high meed of 
 praise must be awarded them for their zeal and 
 single -mindedness amidst worse than Laodicean 
 deadness ; and whilst protesting against the unwise 
 severity with which they punished vem'al defections 
 from what they deemed " the testimonies of the 
 Society," liberal allowance must be made for the 
 difficult position they occupied, when struggling 
 with wealthy, influential, worldly men, priding 
 themselves in their hereditary connection with the 
 Society of Friends, but unwilling to conform to the 
 practical requirements of the Gospel. The defects 
 of the resuscitated discipline were shown in its legal 
 spirit, in the harshness with which it ofttimes treated 
 offenders, and in the increasing number of offences, 
 which it visited with the penalty of expulsion ; thus 
 further narrowing the grounds of church fellowship. 
 Great numbers of disownments took place between 
 1760 and 1780 ; some for acts of flagrant immorality, 
 but many, others for breaches of the Society's " tes- 
 timonies," for the payment of tithes, for marriage. 
 " contrary to rule," &c. ; acts not immoral, and not 
 even necessarily errors of judgment. From the 
 period now under review, the Society of Friends.- 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 181 
 
 lias occupied a more contracted and a more sectarian 
 basis, and its " testimonies " have been negative 
 rather than positive. The renovators of 1760 made 
 hardly any effort to restore the aggressive element 
 to the Society's constitution — ^their policy was purely 
 defensive ; they placed great reliance on penalties, as 
 means for preventing misconduct, and they endea- 
 voured to erect external barriers against the contami- 
 nation of the world. They created a public opinion 
 which enforced conformity to a costume in dress 
 and to the use of a set phraseology — " peculiarities " 
 which, having originated in the endeavour to maintain 
 those legitimate requirements of religion, simplicity 
 in dress and truthfulness of language, degenerated 
 into agents for maintaining an ascetic isolation from 
 the rest of mankind. 
 
 Much spiritual loss, we apprehend, was sustained 
 in many districts, during the eighteenth century, from 
 the great doctrine of Justification by faith in Christ 
 being inadequately set forth ; and in a previous page 
 of this volume, it has been stated that the gloomy, 
 mystical view of religion not unfrequently presented 
 to the young, coupled with unreasonable require- 
 ments respecting matters of behaviour and attire, 
 had alienated the affections of many young persons 
 from the Society of Friends, and induced them to 
 
182 QUAKEEISM : PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 leave it on attaining years of maturity. But the 
 most influential of the proximate causes of decay, 
 mainly introduced into :the Society^ practice in the 
 middle of last century, were its marriage regulations. 
 The treatment of lliis subject by George -Fox and 
 his associates was worthy of their reputation. Not 
 that it was altogether faultless-; .their prohibition of 
 marriage ±o second cousins now hardly finds a de- 
 lender; but, taken as a whole, their arrangements 
 were wise and liberal. They desired that matrimo- 
 nial connections should be formed between per-sons 
 of similar religious views and practices, and their 
 endeavours were attended by a large measure of 
 success. As the Friends declined in numbers, and 
 as merely nominal ;members were retained amongst 
 them, it became increasingly difficult to confine mar- 
 riage within their own limits. The existence of a large 
 body of persons " in profession," but not "in mem- 
 bership," still further complicated the matter. In 
 the fir-st period of the Society'-s bistory, all attenders 
 of its .public worship were at liberty to be married in 
 its meeting-houses; but after the introduction of birth- 
 right member-ship in 1737, this privilege was confined 
 to " members; " and so reckless becaane the use of -the 
 penalty of disownment, that even when a member 
 married one of like Teligious sentiments, but not in 
 
CONCUKDING CHAPTEB. 183 
 
 membership., .he was expelled. Having devoted an 
 entire chapter to the consideration of this subject, it 
 is needless here to dwell further upon it. The main 
 facts of the case are clearly established. Within a 
 considerable pcfftion of :the present century, the 
 Society of Friends in England has disowned nearly 
 one-ihirxl of all its members who have married, a 
 total of not less than .four thousand persons ! Erom 
 this and other causes already referred to, marriage 
 has become increasingly rare.; and not merely has 
 the Society lost its four thousand adult members, 
 but their removal las occasioned the dealihs to exceed 
 the births, so that while in the general population of 
 England there have been since 1810 three births to 
 every two deaths, in the Society of Friends during 
 the same period the deaths have exceeded the births 
 by two thousand four liimdred. 
 
 It is a marked feature, in estimating the relative 
 importance of the different causes now eaumerated, 
 that comparatively few of .them admit of having a 
 numerical value assigned them. It is impossible to 
 estimate the number of persons who might have been 
 attracted to the Society, or of the number of mem- 
 bers who might 'have been retained in it, if its terms 
 of fellowship "had been wider — if its religious services 
 had been more varied in their chaa;acter — if greater 
 
184 QUAKERISM : PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 endeavours had been made to maintain the flame 
 of piety bright and healthy, by the more decided en- 
 couragement of the gift of preaching, by the unim- 
 peded exercise of the gift of religious " teaching," by 
 the more assiduous cultivation of the habit of prayer, 
 and, in short, by giving a less passive impress to all 
 the Society's arrangements. It is in vain to specu- 
 late as to the number of persons who might have 
 embraced Quakerism, had it diligently employed all 
 those means for the diffusion of its principles 
 which are placed within its reach; we cannot de- 
 termine what proportion of its decline is due to the 
 operation of the birthright membership system, or 
 compute what number of members might have been 
 retained had education been more general in the first 
 period of the Society's history, or had it been con- 
 ducted on sounder principles in the latter one. Nor 
 can we assign an exact numerical value to the minor 
 causes that have been treated of in the preceding 
 Essay, and which it is needless here to particularize. 
 Finally, it is impossible to say which of these causes 
 might never have existed, had the early Friends and 
 their successors recognized the great importance of a 
 well-proportioned theology, and had they carefully 
 guarded against the danger of obscuring or under- 
 valuing any portions of Divine truth — whether re- 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTEK. 185 
 
 vealed in the inspired volume, or in those "facts 
 of nature " which " are the words of God" — through 
 excess of zeal for exalting a part, rather than the 
 whole, of Christian truth. 
 
 But whilst we are thus unahle to say what propor- 
 tion of decline is due to this cause, and what to that, 
 the sum total of their effects can be accurately de- 
 termined. Not merely can it be shown that there 
 is now only one in every eleven hundred of the 
 population of the United Kingdom professing with 
 the Friends, and that there was once one in every 
 one hundred and thirty, but we can also ascertain 
 that in spite of the annually increasing population, 
 the Friends are still declining at the rate of nearly 
 one hundred per annum, and that the number of mem- 
 bers in England, which in 1800 was about twenty 
 thousand, is now reduced to less than fifteen thousand. 
 
 In the contemplation of these facts, the question 
 necessarily presents, Has Quakerism a future ? — may 
 it yet rise phcenix-hke from its ashes, learn expe- 
 rience from the errors of the past, and enter on a 
 brighter and a happier course ? or is it doomed to a 
 continuance of its present decrepitude — to a progres- 
 sive decay, involving its untimely end at no very 
 distant period? Historians are now penning the 
 story of its " decline." Shall the future chronicler 
 
186 QUAKERISM: PAST AKD PRESENT. 
 
 record its "fall"? or shall ke tell of decay -averted; 
 of traditional errors discarded; of tlie adsption ^of 
 a wise, because a Christian, policy ; and (of the suc- 
 cess thereon attendant? Cogent reasons for antici- 
 pating either of these events might be adduced; "but, 
 content with having, to ihe best of our -ability, iHns- 
 trated the causes m^hich have occasioned the decline 
 of Quakerism, we will not weaken the picture by 
 indulging in needless speculation. 
 
 On a xecent occasion* the Society of Friends 
 expressed .the opinion that its nussion was far from 
 accomplished — diiat there is a great work still before 
 it. Reviewing the present aspect of Christendran, 
 thoughtful members of many ^eciiions of the one true 
 Churdh, anxious for the advancement of our common 
 faith, wiU unite in this opinion. One .point we re- 
 gard as certain: there is so jmuch of truth in its 
 fundamental principles, when rightly understood, 
 that they are indestructible ; and whether the ex- 
 position of these truths remains with the Society of 
 Friends, or passes into other hands, the Imowledge 
 of them can never .again be banished from the earth. • 
 Let the present leaders of the Society, and let every 
 serious and reflective Friend, be assurfifl, that talking 
 about its decline, and "paraphrasing the causes of 
 * iBeportoflTorh Qaatmrly Meeting, \SB4-SB,'p. 13. 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 187 
 
 it," under sentences which do hut mislead, will 
 avail nothing. The consciousness of personal inte- 
 grity and of earnest, self-denying lahour, will not 
 atone for want of knowledge, or for inadequate or 
 timorous measures. The crisis is far too solenm 
 in its character to permit of trifling. Ifo mystery 
 hangs over the causes which have occasioned the 
 decay of the body ; many of -those causes are still 
 in operation, and if unremoved, can issue iu but one 
 result — the extinction of the Ghurch which permits 
 their continuance. It is not given to any Church 
 to iajlringe with impunily on the rights of reli- 
 gious liberty, io narrow the basis on which it stands, 
 or to frame the arrangements for religious exercises 
 as if intended for beings differently constituted to 
 man. The great lesson we deduce from the story of 
 Quakerism closely corresponds with that drawn by 
 the eloquent historian of the Puritans, from a review 
 of their chequered experience. Describing a healthy 
 Church, he writes: — "It must stand upon a gene- 
 rous basis; . . . its terms of commimion must 
 be few ; it must hold the essentials of salvation (with- 
 out which it were indeed no Church); and it must 
 endeavour to comprehend those, whatever iheir weak- 
 nesses, who subscribe to the aposto3ie canon in their 
 lives, and give sufficient evidence that *hey 'love 
 
188 QUAKERISM: PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 the Lord Jesus in sincerity.' Other methods have 
 been tried in vain. We know the price at which a 
 rigid adherence to rubrical observances must be pur- 
 chased. We have seen the consecLuences of a rigid 
 uniformity, and we have seen the emptiness of a " tra- 
 ditional " zeal. Shall we for ever tread in the erring 
 footsteps of our forefathers ? " 
 
 It was no part of the inquiry which this essay 
 professes to answer, as to what are the remedies 
 for the present condition of the Society of Friends ; 
 those who have perused the preceding pages wiU 
 easily discover the direction, in which the author 
 apprehends these remedies may be found. If further 
 suggestions be permitted, he would say, " Cease 
 to do evil ; " stay these suicidal disownments for 
 offences which, if injudicious, are not immoral; 
 widen the grounds of Christian fellowship ; maintain 
 " unity in essentials, liberty in non-essentials ; " and 
 let "charity prevail over all." Then, "ceasing to 
 do evil," the Society would " learn to do well ; " 
 resuming the aggressive spirit of olden times, it 
 would find unnumbered ways for its exercise; it 
 would discover in this island alone a population 
 existing without the pale of Christian influences, 
 more numerous than that which inhabited the whole 
 of England in 1630, asking, to be won for Christ; 
 
CONCLUDING CHAPTEE. 189 
 
 it would find that, when rightly understood, there is 
 nothing incompatible between a belief in the imme- 
 diate guidance of the Holy Spirit and " fireedom of 
 Gospel ministry," and the prosecution of missions 
 for instructing the ignorant and evangelizing the 
 heathen. In pursuing these fields of service, it 
 would find no mental faculty could be dispensed 
 with — no part of man's nature could be ignored; 
 the human reason must occupy the sphere appointed 
 by its Great Creator; human instrumentality must 
 be prayed for and encouraged — not, indeed, to the 
 disparagement of spiritual agency, — far otherwise : 
 " except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain 
 that build it;" but all being done in dependence on 
 the Divine blessing, with singleness of heart and in 
 the manner God has ordained, His Spirit would be 
 richly poured out in accordance with ancient pro- 
 phecy, and this section of the Church would expe- 
 rience a degree of prosperity as yet unknown to it: 
 so, fulfilling some of the splendid and unaccom- 
 plished expectations of its founders, it might be the 
 honoured instrument for widely extending the blessed 
 kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
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 viewed as a literary 
 
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*W0I£K:S I>TJBILISIIEr> BY 
 
 WORKS OF MR. RJJSKm— continued. 
 
 The Stones of Venice. 
 
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 Notes on the Picture Exhibitions of 1859. 
 
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 Impassioned— exposing and ridiculing some of the 
 vices of our present system of building, and 
 e xciting liis hearers by strong motives of duty and 
 pleasure to attend to architecture— are very 
 3ULCGG3s£ol."—I!cono7ni8t. 
 
 " We conceive it to be impossible that any intel- 
 ligent pei'sons could listen to the lectures, how- 
 ever they might differ from the judgments asserted, 
 and from the general propositions laid down, 
 without an elevating influence and an aroused 
 enthusiasm."— ^i>ee(ator. 
 
 The Political Economy of Art. Price 2s. M. cloth. 
 
 "A most able, eloquent, and well-timed work. 
 We hail it with satisfaction, thinkingit calculated 
 to do much practical good, and we cordially recom- 
 mend it to our rewAera."— Witness. 
 
 "Mr, Kuskin's chief purpose is to treat the 
 artiflt's power, and the art itself, as items of the 
 world's wealth, and to show how these may be 
 best evolved, produced, accumulated, and dis- 
 tributed."— JifltfTifflitm. 
 
 " We never quit Mr. Ruskin without being the 
 better for wliat he has told us, and therefore we 
 recommend this little volume, like all his other 
 works, to the perusal of our readers."— ScononMsi. 
 
 "This hook, daring, as it is, glances keenly at 
 principles, of which some are among the articles 
 of ancient codes, while others are evolving slowly 
 to the light."— Leader. 
 
 A Portrait of John RusMn, JEsq., Engraved by 
 F. HoLL, from a Drawing by Geoegb Richmond. 
 Prints, One Guinea; India Proofs, Two Guineas. 
 
SHVEITH, EIjDEK A-I^D CO- 
 
 NEW WORKS ON INDIA AND THE EAST. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. By John 
 William Kaye, Svo, price 16s. 
 cloth. 
 
 " Mr. Kaye has written a histoi*y of the develop- 
 iTicnt of Christianity in India by all its agencies 
 and all its manifestations. . . . His whole 
 narrative is eloquent and informing, and he has 
 a^ain made a yaluahle use of his great oppor- 
 tunities and indisputable talents, so that his book 
 ■will probably become a standai'd authority."— 
 Times. 
 
 " The author traces the history of Christian 
 Missions in India fl'om their earliest commence- 
 ment down to the present time, with a light 
 and graceful pen. ana is not wearisomely minute, 
 but judiciously discriminative."— ^tAenoiMm. 
 
 " Mr. Kite's is, in many respects an able hook, 
 and it is likely to prove a vei*y useful one. Mr. 
 Kaye is not only most iustructiae trdm his fami- 
 liarity with all points of detail, but he sees and 
 judges everything as it was seen andjudged hy 
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 British government possible in India."— Saiwrdoj/ 
 Bevieiv, 
 
 " Seldom have we had the good fortune to read 
 so simple, thoroutth, and excellent a hlstoi? : it 
 wiUi*emainastandardbook."—jMor«i72i7 C/iromicZe. 
 
 " Mr. Kaye has done good service to the cause 
 of Christian missions by the publication of his 
 volume."— Illustrated News <if the World. 
 
 " A clear and careful retrospect of thfe rise and 
 progress of Chi-istianity in the Bast."— BZaefc- 
 wood's Magazine. 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 LORD METCALFE. By J. W. 
 
 Kayk. New and Cheap Edition, 
 in 2 vols., small post 8vo, with 
 Portrait, price 12s. cloth. 
 
 "Some additions which have been made to the 
 present volumes, place in a strong light the saga- 
 city and good sense of Lord Metcalfe. . . . The 
 present demand for a new edition is a sufficient 
 commendation of a work which has already occu- 
 pied the highest rank among biographies of the 
 great men of modern times."— Observer. 
 
 "A new and revised edition of the life of one 
 of the greatest and purest men that ever aided 
 in governing India. The new edition not only 
 places a very instructive book within the reach of 
 a greater number of persons, but contains new 
 matter of the utmost value and interest."— Criite. 
 
 " One of the most valuable biographies of the 
 present day. This revised edition has severnl 
 fresh passages of high interest, now first inserted 
 from among Lord MTetcalfe's papers, in which his 
 clear prescience of the dangers that thi-eatened 
 our Indian empire is remarkably shown. Both in 
 size and price the new edition is a great improve- 
 ment on the original work."— i/conomi8t. 
 
 "Thiseditlonis revised with care and judgment. 
 Mr. Kaye has judiciously condensed that portion 
 of his'oriEinal work which relates to the earlier 
 cai'eer orthe great Indian statesman. Another 
 improvement m the work will be found in the 
 augmentation of that part setting forth Lord 
 Metcalfe's views of the insecurity of our Indian 
 empire," — Globe. 
 
 " A much improved edition of one of the most 
 interesting political biographies in English 
 mev&taie.^'—NatioTiat Eevteto. 
 
 PAPERS OF THE LATE LORD 
 METCALFE. By J. W. Kate. 
 Demy 8vo, price 16s. cloth. 
 
 "We commend this volume to all persons who 
 like to study State papers, in which the practical 
 sense of a man of the world is joined to the 
 speculative sagacity of iLpl^lloaophicnl statesman. 
 So Indian library should be without it."— Press. 
 
 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF 
 SIR JOHN MALCOLM, CC.B. 
 
 • By J. W. Kate, 2 vols., 8vo, with 
 Portrait. Price 36s. cloth. 
 
 " The biography is replete with intercRt and 
 information, deserving to be perused by the stu- 
 dent of Indian history, and sure to recommend 
 itself to the general reMier."~AtheneEum. 
 
 "One of the most interesting of the recent, 
 biographies of our great Indian statesmen." — 
 National Beview. 
 
 *' Tills book deserves to participate in the popu- 
 larity which it was the good fortune of Sir JuJin 
 Malcolm to eu^oy. "—Bdinburgh Ueview. 
 
 "A very valuable contribution to our Indinn 
 literature. We recommend it strongly to all who 
 desire to learn something of the history of 
 British India."— iV^ew Quarterly Review. 
 
 " Mr. Kaye's biography is at once a contribution 
 to the history of our policy and dominion in the 
 Bast, and a worthy memorial of one of those wise 
 and large hearted men whose energy and prin- 
 ciple have made England svea.t."—BritisJi Quar- 
 terly Review, 
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. Sixth 
 Thousand. By Harriet Marti- 
 NEAU. Price 2s. Hd. cloth. 
 
 *** A reliable class-book for examination in the 
 history ot British India. 
 
 "A good compendium of a great subject."— 
 National Review. 
 
 "A succinct and comprehensive volume." — 
 Leader, 
 
 SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS THE 
 FUTURE GOVERNMENT OF 
 INDIA. By Harriet Martineait. 
 Second Edition. Demy 8vo. Price 
 5s, cloth. 
 
 " As the work of an honest able writer, these 
 Suggestions are well worthy of attention, and no 
 doubt they will generally be duly appreciated."— 
 Observer. 
 
 "Genuine honest utterances of a clear, sound 
 understanding, neither obscurednor enfeebled by 
 party pr^udice or personal selfishness. We cor- 
 dially recommend all who are in search of the 
 truth to peruse and reperuse these pages."— 
 Dailp News. 
 
 EIGHT MONTHS' CAMPAIGN 
 AGAINST THE BENGAL SE- 
 POYS, DURING THE MUTINY, 
 1857. By Colonel George Bour- 
 OHiER, C.B,, Bengal Horse Ar- 
 tillery, With plans. Post 8vo, 
 Price 7s. 6rf. cloth. 
 
 "Col. Bourchler has given a right manly, fair, 
 and forcible statement of events, and the reader 
 will derive much pleasure and instruction from 
 his pages."— jliftewffizMtt. 
 
 "Col. Boui-ehier describes the various opera- 
 tions with a modest forgetfUlness ot self, as 
 pleasing and as rare as the clear manly style in 
 which they are ji&vra.teA."— Literary Gazette. 
 
 "None who really desire to be more than very 
 superficially acquainted with the rise and pro- 
 gress of the rebellion may consider their studies 
 complete until they have read Col. Bourchier. The 
 nicely engraved plans fi-om the Colonel's own 
 sketches confer additional viilue up3n his contri- 
 bution to the literature or ihe Indian war."— 
 Leader. 
 
 9 
 
TS^OEKs i>tjblish:ex) by 
 
 NEW WORKS ON INDIA AND THE EAST— 
 
 Continued. 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LUT- 
 FULLAH, A MOHAMEDAN CEN- 
 
 TLEMAN, WITH AN ACCOUKT OP 
 
 HIS Visit to England. Edited 
 by E. B. Eastwick, Esq. Third 
 
 PERSONAL ADVENTURESDURING 
 THE INDIAN REBELLION, IN 
 ROHlLGUND,FUTTECHUR,AND 
 OUDE. By W. E^wabds, Esq., 
 B.C.S. Eourth Edition, post 8vo. 
 Price 65. cloth. 
 
 " For touching incideuts, hair-breadth 'scapes, 
 and the pathos of sufferiug almost incredible, 
 there has appeared nothing like this little hook of 
 personal aftventnres. For the first time we seem 
 to realize the magnitude of the afflictions which 
 have berallen oui* unhappy countrymen in the 
 Bast. The terrible drama comes before us, and we 
 are by turns bewildered with horror, stun;? to 
 
 fierce indignation, and melted to tears 
 
 We have here a tale of suffering such as may have 
 been equalled, but never surpassed. These real 
 adventures, which no effort of the imagination 
 can surpass, will find a sympathising public."— 
 Athen<Btim. 
 
 "Mr. Edwards's narrative is one of the most 
 deeply interesting episodes of a story of which 
 the least striking portions cannot be read without 
 emotion. He tells hts story with simplicity and 
 manliness, and it bears the impress of that 
 earnesit and unaffected reverence to the will and 
 liaud of God, which was the stay and comfort 
 of many other brave hearts."— Gtaard?am. 
 
 " The narrative of Mr. Bdwards^s siiflPBring and 
 escapes is full of interest; it tells many apuinful 
 tale, but it also exhibits a man patient under ad- 
 versity, and looking to the God and Father of us 
 all for guidance and support."— ^eiecise Remew. 
 
 "Among the stories of hair-breadth escapes in 
 India this is one of the most interesting and 
 touching."— Sa;(Mftmer. 
 
 " A fascinating little ^ook."— National Review, 
 
 " A very touching narrative."- iii. Gazette* 
 
 "Noaccountof it cando it justice." — Globe, 
 
 A LADY'S ESCAPE FROM GWA- 
 LIOR DURING THE MUTINIES 
 OF 1857. By Mrs. CoopIand. 
 Post 8vo. Price 10s. 6d 
 
 " A plain, unvarnished tale, told in the simplest 
 manner."— iVcss. 
 
 " This book is valuable as a contribution to the 
 history of the groat Indian rebellion."— :4.iftenoe«m. 
 
 * ' The merit of this book is its truth. . . . ic 
 contains some passages that never will be read 
 by Eiighshmen without emotion."— ^JjccMnina?'. 
 
 THE CHAPLAIN'S NARRATIVE OF 
 THE SIEGE OF DELHL By the 
 Rev. J. E. W, RoTTON, Chaplain 
 to the Delhi Field Force. Poet 
 8vo,^ith a plan of the City and 
 Siege Works. Price 10s. 6c?. cloth. 
 
 " A simple and touching statement, which bears 
 the impress of truth in every word. It has this 
 advantage over the accounts which have yet been 
 publishecl, that it supplies some of those personal 
 anecdotes and minute details which bring the 
 events home to the understanding."— jliAwKEttm. 
 
 "* The Chaplain's Narrative' is remarkable for 
 its pictures ofmenin a moral and religious aspect, 
 during the progress of- a harassing siege and 
 when suddenly stiicken down by the enemy or 
 diseaae."— spectator. 
 
 "A plain unvarnished record of what came 
 under a Field Chaplain's daiiy observation. Our 
 author is a sincere, hardworking, and generous 
 minded man, and his work will be most acceptable 
 to the friends and relations of the many Christian 
 heroes whose fate it tells, and to whose later 
 hours it alludes."— Xearter. 
 
 " A book which has value as a careful narrative 
 by an eye witness of one of the most stirring 
 episodes of the Indian campaign, and interest as 
 an earnest record by a Cliristian minister of 
 some of the most touching scenes which can come 
 under observation."- ii^erari' Gazette. 
 10 
 
 Edition, small post 8vo. 
 cloth. 
 
 Price 5s. 
 
 "Thank you, Munshi Lutfullah Klian ! "We 
 have read your book with wonder and delight. 
 Your adventures are more curious than you are 
 aware. . . . But your book is chiefly striking 
 for its genuineness. . . . Th3 stoi*y will aid, in 
 its degree, to some sort of understanding of the 
 Indian insurrection. Professor Eastwick has done 
 a grateful service in making known this valuable 
 volum6."~AthencB^m. 
 
 "Head fifty volumes of travel, and a thousand 
 imitations of the Oriental novel, and you will not 
 get the flavour of Eastern life and thought, or the 
 zest of its romance, so perfectly as in Lutmllah's 
 \iook."— Leader. 
 
 "This is a remarkable book. "We have auto- 
 biographies in abundance of Englishmen, French- 
 men, and Germans j but of Asiatics and Mahome- 
 tans, few or none. ... As the autobiography 
 of a Mahometan muUa, itis in itself singular^r 
 interesting. As the observations of an eye- 
 witness or our Indian possessions and our policy 
 and proceedings in the peninsula, it possesses a 
 valueof its own, quite distinct fl'om any European 
 memorials on the same subjects."— StawHora. 
 
 "This is the freshest and most original work 
 that it has been our good fortune to meet with lor 
 long. It Dears every trafie of being amostgenuino 
 account of the feelinga and doings of the author. 
 The whole tone of the book, the tui-n of every 
 thought, the association of ideas, the allusions, 
 areall fresh to the English reader; it opens upa 
 new vein, and many will be astonished to find 
 how richa vein it is, LutfuUah is by no means an 
 ordinary specimen of his race."— JScowom^Bi. 
 
 "This veritable autobiography, reads like a mix- 
 ture of the Life and Adventui-e of Gil Bias, with 
 those of the Three Oalendars."~GZo6fi, 
 
 "As an autobiography, the book isvery curious. 
 It bears the strongesb resemblance to Gil Bias of 
 anything we have ever TesA."—S:pectator. 
 
 THE CRISIS IN THE PUNJAB. 
 
 By Ebbderick H. Cooper, Esq., 
 C. S., TJmritsir. Post 8vo, with 
 Map. Price 7s, 6rf. cloth. 
 " The book is full of terrible interest. The nar- 
 rative is written with vigour and earnestness, 
 and is full of the most tragic interest."— 
 EeonomiBt. 
 
 " One of the most interesting and spirited books 
 which have sprung out of the sepoy mutiny."— 
 Globe, 
 
 THE DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW: 
 
 A Stafe-Opi'icbr's Diakt. By 
 Captain, Thomas E. Wilson, 13th 
 Bengal N.I,, Assistant Adjutant- 
 General. Sixth Thousand. With 
 plan of the Residency. Small post 
 8vo. Price 2*. 6d. 
 " Unadorned and simple, the story is, neverthe- 
 less, an eloquent one. This is a narrative not to 
 be laid down until the last line has been read."— 
 Lender. 
 
 "The Staff-Offlcer's Diary is simple and brief, 
 and has a special interest, inasmuch as it gives a 
 fuller account than wo nave elsewhere seen of 
 those operations which were the chief human 
 means of salvation to our friends in Lucknow. 
 The Staff-Officer brings liome to us, by his details, 
 the nature of that umJeri^round contest, upon the 
 result of which the fate ofthe beleaguered garrison 
 especially depended."— -£a-a?/(^er. 
 
smcith:, eldee ^^.irr) co. 
 
 NEW WORKS ON INDIA AND THE EAST- 
 
 Continued. 
 
 THE LIFE OF MAHOMET AND 
 HISTORY OF ISLAM TO THE 
 ERA OF THE HEGIRA. By 
 
 William Muik, Esq., Bengal Civil 
 Service. 2 vols., 8vo. Price 32«. 
 cloth. 
 
 "The most perfeot life of Mahomet in the 
 Emtlishlangaage, or perhaps in anyother. . . . 
 The work is at once learned and Interestini!, and 
 it cannot fail to be eagerly perused hy all persons 
 having any pretensions to liistorioal Knowledge." 
 —Observer. 
 
 VIEWS AND OPINIONS OF BRICA- 
 DIER-CENERAL JACOB, C.B. 
 
 Edited by Capt. Lewis Pellt. 
 Demy 8vo. Price 12s. cloth. 
 
 "The statesmanlike views and. bi-oad opinions 
 enunciated in this work wouldcommand attention 
 under any circumstances, but coming from one of 
 siich experience and authority thejf are doubly 
 vialuable, and ment the consideration of legis- 
 lators and politicians."— iS^n. 
 
 "Tlie £aiot8 in this book are worth looking at. 
 If the reader desires ro take a peep into the inte- 
 rior of the mind of a great man. let him make 
 Aogualntauce with the 'Views and Opinions ol 
 General Jacob.' "—Globe. 
 
 "This is truly a gallant and soldierly book; very 
 Napierish in its self-conMence, in its caj>ital 
 sense, and in its devotedness to profiaasional 
 honour and the public good. The book should be 
 studied by all who are interested in the choice of 
 a new government for India."— i?aiiy News. 
 
 THE PARSEES : theik Histort, 
 
 Religion, Manners and Customs. 
 
 By DoSABHOY Pramjee. Post 
 
 8vo. Price 10s. cloth. 
 
 "Our author's account of the inner life of the 
 
 Parsees will be read with interest."— Btnlp News. 
 
 " A very curious and well written book, by a 
 
 £oung Farsee, on the manners and customs of 
 is own reuce."— National Review. 
 "An acceptable addition to our literature. It 
 gives information which many will be glad to 
 have carefully gathered together, and formed into 
 a shapely whole."— .BcoMomis^. 
 
 THE VITAL STATISTICS OF THE 
 EUROPEAN AND NATIVE AR- 
 MIES IN INDIA. By Joseph 
 EwART, M. D., Bengal Medical 
 Service. Demy 8vo. Price 9s. 
 cloth. 
 
 "A valuable work, in which Dr. Bwart, with 
 equal industry and skill, ^as compressed the 
 essence and import of an immense mass of de- 
 tails."— N/- ccitaCor. 
 
 ■• One main object of this most valuable volume 
 is to point out the causes which render the Indian 
 climate so fatal to European tvoo-pa."— Critic. 
 
 INDIAN SCENES AND CHARAC- 
 TERS, Sketched from Life . 
 By Prince Alexis Solttkoff. 
 Sixteen Plates in Tinted Litho- 
 graphy, with Descriptions. Edited 
 by E. B. Eastwick, Esq., P.R.S. 
 Colombier folio, half-hound in 
 morocco, prints, 3/. 35. ; proofs 
 (only 50 copies printed), 4/. 4s. | 
 
 NARRATIVE OF THE MISSION 
 FROM THE GOVERNOR-GENE- 
 RAL OF INDIA TO THE COURT 
 OF AVA IN 1855. With Notices 
 OP the Country, Government, 
 AND People. By Capt. Henry 
 Yule, Bengal Engineers. Imperial 
 8vo, with 24 plates (12 coloured), 
 50 woodcuts, and 4 maps. Ele- 
 gantly bound in cloth, with gilt 
 edges, price 2l. I2s, 6d. 
 
 "A stately volume in gorgeous golden covers. 
 Such a book is in our times a i-arite. Large, 
 maaaive, and beautiful in itself, it is illustrated 
 by a sprinkling of elegant woodcuts, and hy a 
 
 senes of admirable tinted lithographs 
 
 We have read it with curiosity and gratification, 
 as a ft'csh, full, and luminous report upon the 
 oonditionof one of the most interesting divisions 
 of Asia beyond the Ga,neea."—AtIiencBum. 
 
 " Captain Tule has brought to his narrative a 
 knowledge of many things, which ia the main 
 help to observation. He has a taste in archi- 
 (■eotiire, art, and the oognarte sciences, as well as 
 much information on the histoi-y and religion of 
 the Burmese. . . . His description or these 
 things, especially of the antiquities, are not only 
 curious in themselves, but for the speculations 
 they open up as to origin of the Burmese style, 
 and the splendour of the empire, centuries ago."— 
 Spectator. 
 
 " Captain Tule, in the preparation of the sDlentlid 
 volume before us, hfwavailed himself of the labours 
 of those who preceded him . To all who are desiruus 
 of possessing the best and fullest account that 
 has ever been given to the public, of a great, and 
 hitherto little known region of the globe, the 
 interesting, conscientious, andwell-wntten work 
 of Captain Yule will have a deep interest, while 
 to the political economist, geographer, and mer- 
 chant ft will be indispensable."- .Examiner. 
 
 TIGER SHOOTING IN INDIA. By 
 
 Lieutenant William Kioe, 25th 
 
 Bombay N. L Super royal 8vo. 
 
 With 12 plates in chromo-litho- 
 
 graphy. Price 21s. cloth. 
 
 "Those adventures, told in handsome large 
 print, with spirited chromo-lithographs to illus- 
 trate them, make the volume before us as pleasant 
 reading as any record of sporting achievements 
 we have ever taken in hiiaa."—Athen(Bum. 
 
 "A remarkably pleasant book of adventures 
 during several seasons of 'large game' hunting 
 in llajpootana. The twelve chi'omo-lithographs 
 are very valuable accessories to the narrative ; 
 they have wonderful spirit and freshness." — 
 Globe. 
 
 "A good volume of wild sport, abounding in 
 adventure, and handsomely illustrated with 
 coloured plates from spirited designs by the 
 author."— ^a;aminer. 
 
 THE COMMERCE OF INDIA WITH 
 EUROPE, AND ITS POLITICAL 
 EFFECTS. By B. A. Ikyjng, 
 Esq. Post 8vo. Price 7s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 "Mr. Irving's workia that of aman thoroughly 
 versed in hi8 Buhject. It is a historical haiirf- 
 book of the jirogvess and vicissitudes of European 
 trade with laCia,."— Economist. 
 
 11 
 
A^^ORics 3?rrBi.isiiEr> by* 
 
 WORKS ON INDIA AND THE EAST. 
 
 THE ENGLISH IN WESTERN INDIA: 
 
 BEING THE EaKLY HISXOKT OF THE 
 
 Factokt at Sukat, or Bombay. 
 By Philip Anderson, A.M. 2nd 
 edition, 8vo, price 14s. cloth. 
 
 "Quaint, curious, and amusing, tills volume 
 describes, fl'om uld manusoi'ipts aud obscure 
 "books, the life of Englisli merchants in an Indian 
 Factory. It contains fresh and amusing gossip, 
 all bearing on events and characters of historical 
 imYiortanoe."—Athenmum. 
 
 "A book of permanent value."— Gwowdion. 
 
 UFE IN ANCIENT INDIA. By Mrs. 
 Speik. With Sixty Illustrations 
 hy G. ScHARF. 8ro, price 15s., 
 elegantly bound in cloth, gilt edges. 
 
 ""Whoever desires to have the best, the com- 
 
 gletest, and the most popular view of what 
 inental scholarjs have made known to us respect- 
 ing! Ancient India must peruse the work of Mrs. 
 Siieir; in which he wil' find the story told in 
 clear, correct, and unaffected English. The book 
 is admirably got \xg."— Examiner. 
 
 THE CAUVERY, KISTNAH, AND 
 CODAVERY : being a Kepobi 
 
 ON THE WOKKS CONSTBUOTED ON 
 THOSE RlTEBS, TOE THE IeEIGATION 
 
 OF Provinces in the Peesidenct 
 OP Madeas. By E. Bated Smith, 
 r.G.S., Lt.-Col. Bengal Engineers, 
 &c., &c. In demy 8vo, with 19 
 Plans, price 28s,. cloth. 
 
 "A most curious and interesting work."— 
 EconomUt. 
 
 THE BHILSA TOPES ; or, Bdddhist 
 Monuments op Centeal India. 
 By Major Cunningham. One vol., 
 8vo, with Thirty-three Plates, 
 price 30s. cloth. 
 
 " of the Topes opened in various parts of India 
 none have yielded so rich a harvest of important 
 inrormation as those of Eliilsa, opened by Mujor 
 Cunningham and Lieut. Maisey : and wliich are 
 described, with an abundance of highly curious 
 
 graphic illustrations, in this most interesting 
 ook,"—Exammer. 
 
 THE CHINESE AND THEIR REBEL- 
 LIONS. By Thomas Taylor 
 Meadows. One thick Tolume, 8vo, 
 with Maps, price I8s. cloth. 
 
 *' Mr. Meadows' book Is the work of a learned, 
 conscientious, and observant person, and really 
 important in many respects."— 2"zme», 
 
 ''Mr. Meadows has produced a work which 
 deserves to be studied by all who wouldgaiu a true 
 appreciation of Chinese character. Information 
 is sown broad-cast through every page."— 
 AthencBum. 
 
 ADDISON'S TRAITS AND STORIES 
 OF ANGLO-INDIAN LIFE. With 
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 "An entertaining and Instructive volume of 
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 " Anecdotes and stories well calculated < to 
 Illustrate Anglo-Indian life and the domestic 
 manners andnahitsof Hindostan."— O&vei-ver. 
 
 " A pleasant oolleotion of amusing anecdotes." 
 -CHttc. 
 
 12 
 
 TRACTS ON THE NATIVE ARMY 
 OF INDIA. By Brigadier-General 
 Jacob, C.B. 8vo, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 ROYLE ON THE CULTURE AND 
 COMMERCE OF COTTON IN- 
 INDIA. 8vo, price 18s. cloth. 
 
 ROYLE'S FIBROUS PLANTS OF 
 INDIA eitted foe Coedage, 
 Clothing, and Paper. 8vo, price 
 12s. cloth. 
 
 ROYLE'S PRODUCTIVE RE- 
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 ROYLE'S REVIEW OF THE MEA- 
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 A SKETCH OF ASSAM: 
 
 with some Account of the Hill 
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 price 14s. cloth. 
 
 BUTLER'S TRAVELS AND ADVEN- 
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 with Plates, price 12s. cloth. 
 
 DR. WILSON ON INFANTICIDE IN 
 WESTERN INDIA. Demy 8vo, 
 price 12s. 
 
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 LAURIE'S PEGU. Post 8vo, price 
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 IRVING'S THEORY AND PRACTICE 
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 THE BOMBAY QUARTERLY 
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 14, price 6s. each. 
 
 BAILLIE'S LAND TAX OF INDIA. 
 
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 BAILLIE'S MOOHUMMUDAN LAW 
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S3vJ:ITII, EI^DEU .A-ISTD CO. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 ANNALS OF BRITISH LEGIS- 
 LATION^ A Classified Summary 
 OP Parliamentary Papers. Ei. 
 by Professor Leone Levi. The 
 
 yearly issue consists of 1,000 pages, 
 super royal 8vo, and the Subscrip- 
 tion is Two Guineas, payable in 
 advance. The Thirty-fourth Part 
 is just issued, commencing the 
 Third Year's Issue. Volumes I. to 
 IV". may be had, price 4/. 4^. cloth. 
 
 *' A series that will, if it he always managed as 
 it now is by Px-ofessor Levi, last as long as there 
 remains a Legislature in Great Britain. These 
 Annals are to give the essence of work done and 
 information garnered, for the State during each 
 legislative year, a summary description of every 
 Act passed, a digest of the vital facts contained 
 in every Blue Book issued^ and of all documents 
 relating to the public business of the country. 
 The series will live, while generations of men die, 
 if it be maintained in its old age as ably and as 
 conscientiously as it is now In its youth."— 
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 " Almost all that we require in a novelist the 
 writer has: perception of character and power 
 of delineating it; picturesqueness, passion, and 
 knowledge of life. Reality — deep, significant 
 reality— 18 the characteristic of this Dook."— 
 Eraser's Magazine, 
 
 SHIRLEY. By Cuieree Bell. Price 
 
 2s. Gd. cloth. 
 
 "The peculiar power which was so greatly 
 admired in 'JanelDyre' is not absent &om this 
 book. It possesses deep interest, and an irre- 
 sistible grasp or re^ty. There is a vividness and 
 distinctness of conception in it quite marvellous. 
 The power of graphic delineation and expression 
 is intense. There are scenes which, for strength 
 and delicacy of emotion, are not transcended in 
 the range of English fiotion."— ^xotncner. 
 
 "'Shirley' is an admirable book; totally free 
 from cant, affectation, or conventional tinsel of 
 ) any kind; genuine E'Uglish in tbe independence 
 and upi-iuhtness of tbe tone of thought, in tbe 
 purity of heart and feeling^ which pervade it; 
 genuine English in the masculine vigour or rough 
 originality of its conception of character; and 
 genuine English in style and diction."— Morning 
 Chronicle. 
 
 " The : same piercing and loving eye, and the 
 same bold and poetic unagery, are exnibited here 
 as in ' Jane Eyre.' Similar power is manifested in 
 the delineation of character. With a few brief 
 vigorous touches, the picture starts into distinct- 
 ness."— £din6zwfl'A Retnew. 
 
 " * Shirley * is veiy clever. It could not be other- 
 wise. The faculty of graphic description, strong 
 imagination, f<ervid and masculine diction, ana- 
 lytic skill, all are visible. . . . Gems of rare 
 thought and glorious passion shine here and 
 there."— Timet. 
 
 "'Shirley' is a book demanding close perusal 
 and careful consideration."- Af Aen^eum. 
 
 " ' Shirley ' is a novel of remarkable power and 
 brilliancy: it is calculated to roase attention, 
 excite the imagination, and keep the faculties in 
 eager and impatient suspense."— Jtfor«<nfl' Post. 
 
 " ' Shirley ' is the anatomy of the female heart. 
 It is a book which indicates exquisite feeling, and 
 very great powp,r of mind in the writer. The 
 uromen are all divine."— Dat'fj/ Nevos. 
 18 
 
 VILLETTE. By CuKRER Bell. Price 
 2s. ei. cloth. 
 
 "* Villette' is ajnoat remarkable work— a pro- 
 duction altogether aui generis. Fulness and 
 vlgoui' of thought mark almost every sentence, 
 and there is a sort of easy power pervading the 
 whole narrative such as we have rarely met."— 
 Edinburgh Review. 
 
 " This novel amply sustains the fame of .the 
 author of ' Jane Eyre ' and ' Shirley ' as an ori^nal 
 and powerful writer. 'Tillette' is a most admi- 
 rably written novel, everywhere original, every- 
 where shrewd."— ^a:aini«er. 
 
 "There is throughout a charm of ft'eshnesa 
 which is infinitely delightful: freshness in obser- 
 vation, freshness in feeling, freshness in expres- 
 sion."— Xt^erory Qassette. 
 
 " The tale is one of the affections, and remark- 
 able as a picture of manners. A bumlng heart 
 glows throughout it, and one bi'illaantly distinct 
 character keeps it aiive."—Atfienaum. 
 
 " * Tillette ' is crowded with beauties, with good 
 things, for which we look to the cleav sight, deep 
 feeling, and singular though not extensive expe- 
 rience of life, wnich we associate with the name 
 of Currer 'B6U."—I)aili/ Netos. 
 
 "'Villette' is entitled to take a very high place 
 in the literature of fiction. The reader will find 
 character nicely conceived and powerfully de- 
 picted : he vnll discover much quiet humour, a 
 lively wit, brilliant dialogue, vivid descriptions, 
 refiections both new and true, sentiment free 
 from cant and conventionality, and bursts of elo- 
 quence and poetry, flashing here and there."— 
 Critic. 
 
 " The fascination of genius dwells in this book, 
 which is, in our judgment, superior to any of 
 Ourrer Bell's previous efforts. For originality of 
 conception, grasp of character, elaboration and 
 consistency of efetail, and picturesque force of 
 expression, few works in the English language 
 can stand the test of comparison with it."—Mom- 
 vng Post. 
 
 WUTHERING HEIGHTS AND 
 AGNES GREY. By Ellis and 
 Acton Bell. With Memoir by 
 Currer Bell. Price 2s. Gd. cloth. 
 
 " There are passages in this book of * Wuthering 
 Heights * of which any novelist, past or present, 
 might be proud. It has been said of Shakespeai'e 
 that he drew cases which the physician might 
 study ; Ellis Bell has done no \%^^,"—Balladiwm. 
 
 " There is, at all events, keeping in the book: 
 the groups of figures and the scenery ore in har- 
 mony with each other. There is a touch of Sal- 
 vator Uosa in all."— ^ttoa. 
 
 " ' Wuthering Heights ' bears the stamp of a 
 profoundly individual, strong, and passionate 
 mind. The memoir is one of the most touching 
 chapters in literary 'bioeca.v'b:y."—Nonconformut. 
 
 A LOST LOVE. ByAsHTOUD Owen. 
 Price 2s. cloth. 
 
 "'A Lost Love* is a story full of grace and 
 genius. No outline of the stoiy would give any 
 idea of its hearty."— AtheneBum. 
 
 " A tale at once moving and winning, natural 
 and romantic, and certain to raise all the finer 
 sympathies or the reader's nature."— Press. 
 
 " A real picture of woman's 'ijle."— Westminster 
 Review. , ^ 
 
 "A vary heautiftol and touching story. It is 
 true to nature, and appeals to all who have not 
 ■ - -.yonfli."-G- ' 
 
 forgotten love and yonth."— ( 
 
 ''A novel of great genius; 1 
 
 life itself,"— Jvew Quarterlp . 
 
 ■Globe. 
 
 beautiful and true as 
 ..-..««, -.w- Quarterly Bevieto. _ 
 
 "A striking and original story: a work of 
 genius and senBlhllity."— ^otwrdo^ Reoiew. 
 
 "This volume displays unquestionable genius 
 and that of a high order."— tadi/'« NetcspaXier, 
 
SMITH, ELUEOR ^^1?T) CO. 
 
 CHEAP SERIES OF POPULAR FICTIONS— 
 
 Continued, 
 
 DEERBROOK. By Harriet 
 Martineatj. Price 2s. 6d. cloth, 
 
 " This popular flotion presents a true aad ani- 
 mated, picture of country life amons the upper 
 middle classes of Bnelish residents, and is re- 
 markable for Its interest, arising from the 
 influence of vanous ohavaoters upon eaoh other, 
 and the effect of ordinary circumstances upon 
 them. The descnptious of rural scenery, and the 
 daily pursuits in village hours, ai-e among the 
 most oharming of the author's writinzs ; but the 
 way In which oKciting incidents gradually arise 
 out of the moat ordinary phases of life, and the 
 skill with which natural ana every-day characters 
 are brought out In dramatic situations, attest the 
 power or the author's genius." — 
 
 TALES OF THE COLONIES. 
 
 By Charles Rowcroft. Price 
 2s, Qd. cloth. 
 
 "'Tales of the Oolouies Ma an able and interest- 
 ing book. The author has the first great requisite 
 in Action— a knowledge of the life he undertakes 
 to desGi-ibe ; and his matter is solid and real." — 
 ^ectator. 
 
 "It combines the fidelity of truth with the 
 spirit of a romance, and has altogether much of 
 Do Foe in its oharaoter and composition."— 
 Literary Gazette. 
 
 ROMANTIC TALES (including 
 "Avillion"). 33y the Author of 
 *' John Halifax, Gentleman,'* A 
 new edition. Price 25. Be?, cloth. 
 
 " In a nice knowledge of the refinements of the 
 female heart, and in a happy power of depicting 
 emotion, the authoress is excelled by very few 
 story tellers of the day." — Qlobe. 
 
 " ' Avillion ' is a beautiful and fanciful story, 
 and the rest make very agreeable reading. There 
 is not one of them unquickened by true feeling, 
 exquisite taste, and a pure and vivid imae^a- 
 tion."^£!xam.iner, 
 
 DOMESTIC STORIES. By the 
 Author of "John Halifax, Gentle- 
 man," &c. Price 2s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 " In a nice knowledge of the refinements of the 
 female heart and in a happy power of depicting 
 emotion, the authoress is excelled by very few 
 story-tellers of the Aa}r."-^G-lobe. 
 
 ** There is not one of them unquickened by true 
 feeling, exquisite tsste, and a pure and vivid 
 imagination." — Examiner. 
 
 *' As pleasant and fanciful a miscellany as has 
 been given to the public in these latter days." — 
 Athen^um. 
 
 "In these her first essays into the realms of 
 fiction. Miss Muloch has shown a daring spirit in 
 the variety and sweep of the subjects that she 
 handles." — Eclectic Review, 
 
 "It matters little as to the machinei^ with 
 whic^ a writer works out his purpose, provided 
 that purpose be laudable and the execution of the 
 work good. Both conditions are perfectly fulfllled 
 in the work before us : the sentiment is pure and 
 true, the moral excellent, and the style incompa- 
 rably_beautiful."— /;ZMS«raied News of the World. 
 
 " We cannot recommend to our readers a plea- 
 santer book for an evening's instruction and 
 amusement."- Zoidy's Newspaper. 
 
 AFTER DARK. By Wilkib Collins. 
 Price 2s. 6c?. cloth. 
 
 "Mr. Wilkte Collins stands in the fbremost rank 
 of our younger wiiters of fiction. He tells a 
 story well and furoibly, his style is eloquent and 
 picturesque; he has considerable powers of pa- 
 thos; understands the "art of consti-uction: is 
 never wearisome or worriy. and has a keen insight 
 into character."— Uaiiyjfeios. 
 
 "Stories of adventure, well varied, and, often 
 striking in the incidents, or with thrilling situa- 
 tions. They are about as pleasant reading as a 
 novel reader could d6six6."~Spectator. 
 
 " Mr. Wilkie Collins has been happy in the choice 
 of a thread whereon to string the pearls; we lead 
 it almost as eagerly as the stones themselves. 
 Mr, Collins possesses a rare faculty Vart de 
 conter. No man living better tells a story."— 
 Lea er. 
 
 "Mr. Wilkie Collins .takes high rank among 
 the who can invent a thrilling story and t 11 ft 
 with brief simphoity. The power of commanding 
 the faeuUies or the reader is exercised in nearly 
 all these stories."— GZofifl. 
 
 "Tneir great merit consists either in the effec- 
 tive presentation of a mystery, or the effective 
 working up of striking Bitua,tiona."—We8ti/imster 
 
 '* ' After Dai'k* abounds with genuine touches 
 of naAave."— British Quarterlj/. 
 
 "These stories possess all the author's well- 
 known beauty of style and dramatic power."— 
 New Quarterly. 
 
 PAUL FERROLL. Fourth edition, 
 price 2s. cloth, 
 
 " We have seldom read so wonderful a romance. 
 We can find no fault in it as a work of art. It 
 leaves us in admiration, almost in awe, of the 
 powers of its author."— ivew Quarterly. 
 
 " The art displayed in presenting Paul FerroU 
 throughout the story is beyond aU praise," — 
 Exfiimmer. 
 
 "The incidents of the book are extremely well 
 managed." — Athencsum. 
 
 " The fruit of much thoughtful Investigation is 
 represented to ' us in the character of Paul 
 
 Perroll We do not need to he told how 
 
 he felt and why he acted thus and thus ; it will 
 be obvious to most minds from the very opening 
 pages. But the power of the story is not weak- 
 ened by this early knowledge : rather is it 
 heightened, since the artistic force of contrast is 
 grand and fearful in the two figures who cling so 
 closely together in their fond, human love."— 
 Morning Chronicle, 
 
 SCHOOL FOR FATHERS. 
 
 By Talbot Gwtnne. Price 2s. c\. 
 
 " 'The School for Fathers 'is oneof the cleverest, 
 most brilliant, gei^ial, and instructive stoi^es that 
 we have read since the publication of ' Jane 
 Byre.' "—Eclectic Review. , 
 
 " The pleasantest tale we have read for many a 
 day. It is a story of the Tatler and Spectator 
 days, and Is very fitly associated with that time 
 oi good English literature by its manly feeling, 
 direct, unaffected manner of writing, and nicely- 
 managed, well-turned narrative. The descriptions 
 are excellent; some of the country painting is aa 
 fresh as a landscape by Alfl'ed Constable, or an 
 idyl by Tennyson."— JSxamimer. 
 
 "A capital picture of town and counti^y a 
 century ago; and is emphatically the fi-eshest, 
 raciest, and most artistic piece of fiction that has 
 lately come in our wa,y."— Nonconformist. 
 
 PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION. 
 
 KATHIE BRANDE : the Fireside Histokt of a Quiet Life. By Holme 
 
 liEE, Author of " Sylvan Holt's Daughter." 
 BELOW THE SURFACE. By Sir Aethuk Hallam Elton, Bart., M.P., 
 THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL. By Acton Bell. (Just ready.) 
 
 19 
 
"WOE3CS I^TJBLISHED BY 
 
 NEW NOVELS. 
 
 (to be had at 
 
 AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. By 
 Holme Lee, Author of " Sylvan 
 Holt's Daughter." (Now ready.) 
 
 EXTREMES- By Miss E. W. Atkin- 
 son, Author of *' Memoirs of the 
 Queens of Prussia.*' 2 vols. 
 
 "A nervous and vigorous style, an elaliorate 
 delineation of character under many varieties, 
 spirited and well-sustained dialogue, and a care- 
 fully-consti-ucted plot; if these nave any charms 
 for our readers, they will not forget the swiftly 
 
 fliding hours passed in perusing *^Bxtremes.'"— 
 lornvna Post. 
 
 " We have no hesitation in placing this hook 
 high above the ephemeral stories with which 
 from time to time the cineulating lihraries are 
 inuiidated. The story is not so intense as that of 
 'Jane Eyre,' nor are the characters so pro- 
 nounced as those in * Adam Bede,' and yet we 
 tliink 'Extremes' will hear comparison with 
 either of the two. There is throughout the whole 
 story the trace of great power and delicate 
 perception of minute shades of character, which 
 place Miss Atkinson high in the ranks of con- 
 temporary novelista."— i(n^es' Newspmier. 
 
 '"^Extremes' is a novel written with a sober 
 purpose, and wound up with a moral. The 
 
 fiurpose is to exempliiy some of the errors arising 
 rom mistaken zeal in religious matters, and the 
 evU conseciuenees that flow ftom those errors."— 
 Spectator. 
 
 "The machinery of the piot is well imagined 
 and well worked out, and, we need scarcely add, 
 well calculated to afCurd gratification to the 
 reader."— Press. 
 
 THE TWO HOMES. By the Author 
 of " The Heir of Vallis." 3 vols. 
 
 "There is a great deal that is very good in this 
 book— a great deal of good feeling and excellent 
 design. . . . There are some good pictures of 
 Madeira, and pf life and society there : and there 
 are evidences of much painstaking and talent,"- 
 AtTiencBiim. 
 
 " ' The Two Homes ' is a very clever novel, . . 
 Madeira furnishes Mr. Mathews with a fertile 
 theme for his descriptive powers. The dialogue 
 is good: the characters all speak and act con- 
 sistently with their natures."— Xeader. 
 
 " ' The Two Homes ' is a novel of more tlian 
 ordinai'y merit, and Is written throughout in a 
 careful and elegant style."— Jlforninf Post, 
 
 THE DENNES OF DAUNDELYONN. 
 
 By Mrs. Charles J. Pbobt. 3 vols. 
 
 "This is a novel of more than average merit. 
 There is cousiderahle knowledge of character, 
 power of description, and quiet social satire, ex- 
 hibited in its pages."— iVesa. 
 
 " * The Dennes of Daundelyonn ' is a very read- 
 able booli, and will be immensely popular. . . . 
 It has many beauties which deservedly recom- 
 mend it to the novel reader."— Critic. 
 
 " ' The Dennes of Daundelyonn ' is a hook writ- 
 ten with great vigour and freahnesa."— Xeotifer. 
 
 " There is mere cleverness and variety in these 
 volumes than in twenty average novels. '—Globe. 
 
 COUSIN STELLA J or, Conflict. 
 By the Author of " Violet Bank." 
 3 vols. 
 
 "An excellent novel, written with great care; 
 the interest is well sustained to the end, and the 
 characters are all life-like. It is an extremely 
 well-wi-itten and well-conceived story, with quiet 
 power and precision of touch, with freshness of 
 interest and great merit."— AtheTiaium. 
 
 " ' Cousin Stella' has the merit, now becoming 
 rarer and rarer, of a comparative novelty in Its 
 suhjeot; the interest of which will secure for this 
 novel a fair share of populai-ity," — 5af wrday 
 Mevieio. 
 
 20 
 
 ALL LIBRARIES.) 
 
 CONFIDENCES. By the Author of 
 "Eita." 
 
 "Deeidedhr both good and interesting. The 
 book has a fresh andpleasant air about it : it is 
 written in an excellent tone, and there aretouches 
 of pathos here and there which we must rank 
 with a higher style of composition than that 
 usually attained in works of this class."- JVew 
 Quarterlj; JRevieto. 
 
 "This new novel, by the author of 'Rita,' dis- 
 plays the same combination of ease and power in 
 the delineation of character, the same life-like 
 dialogue, and the same faculty of constructing an 
 interesting 6toTy."—Speetator. 
 
 '* * Confidences' is written in the most pleasing 
 manner of any novel we have read for yeai-a 
 ■past."— Leader. 
 
 "A clever book, and not too long,"~Bxaminer, 
 
 TRUST FOR TRUST. By 
 
 A. J. Barrowoliefe, Author of 
 " Amherhill." 3 vols. 
 
 " The story is admirably developed. Theinterest 
 never flags, the Incidents are natural without 
 being commonplace, and the men and woman talk 
 and act like human beinga."— iVess. 
 
 *' It is seldom we find, even in this great age of 
 novel writing, so much that la pleasant and so 
 little to object to as in ' Trust for Trust.' It con- 
 tains -much original thought and fresh humour." 
 —Leader. 
 
 " The story evinces vigour of description and 
 power of writing."— iiierory Churchman. 
 
 ELLEN RAYMOND; or, TJps and 
 Downs. By Mrs. Vidal, Author 
 of "Tales for the Bush," &c. 
 3 vols. 
 
 " The plot Is wrought out wltih wonderful inge- 
 nuity, and the diflerent characters are sustained 
 in perfect keeping to the en&."—JUu8trated News 
 of me World. 
 
 ** The characters are good, the style pure, cor- 
 rect, brisk, and easy."— Press. 
 
 "Mrs. vidal displays resource, imagination, 
 aud power In no common degree. * • • There is 
 more power and strength put forth in ' Ellen 
 Raymond* than perhaps in any lady's book of 
 this generation."— iSafMrday Seview. 
 
 "This novel wiUflnd a great many admirers." 
 —Leader. 
 
 LOST AND WON. By Georgiana 
 M. Craik, Author of "Biverston." 
 1 vol. 2nd Edition. 
 
 " Nothing superior to this novel has appeared 
 during the present season."— ieadei*. 
 
 " Miss Craik's new story is a good one and in 
 point of ability above the average of ladies' novels." 
 —Daily News. 
 
 " The language is good, the narrative spirited, 
 the characters are fairly delineated, and the 
 dialogue has considerable dramatic force."— 
 Satwrday Review. 
 
 " This is an Improvement on Miss Craik's first 
 work. The story is more compact and more 
 inteveBtins."—At7ienceum. 
 
 THE MOORS AND THE FENS. 
 By F. G. Trafford. 3 vols. 
 
 "This novel stands out much In the same way 
 that ' Jane Eyre ' did. . . . The characters are 
 drawn by a mind which can realize fictitious 
 characters with minute intensity. "Saturday 
 Review. 
 
 " It is seldom that a first fiction is entitled to 
 such, applause as is * The Koora and the Fens,' 
 and we snail look anxiously for the writer's next 
 esBf^. "—Critic. 
 
 " The author has the gift of teUlng a story, and 
 'The Uoors and the Fens* wiU be read."— 
 Athenmim, 
 
SiyriTH, ELDEK J^INT) CO* 
 
 NEW NOYELS— continued. 
 
 AN OLD DEBT. By Florence 
 Dawson. 2 vols. 
 
 ** A powerfully wiltten novel ; one of the lieat 
 whicli has recently proceeded from a female 
 hand. , . . Tlie dialogue ia vigorous and 
 spirited."— If orwiwff Poat. 
 
 " There is an energy and vitality aoout this 
 work which distinguish it ft-om the common 
 head of novels. Its terse vigour sometimes reeals 
 Miss Bronte, hut in some respects Misa Florence 
 Dawson is decidedly superior to the author ol 
 ' Jane Eyre,' "— Saturday Review. 
 
 "This novel is wi-itten with great care and 
 painstaking : it evinces cousiderable powers of 
 reflection. The atyle is good, and the author 
 possesses the power of aepioting emotion."— 
 AthencBum. 
 
 "A very good seasonable novel."~Zea(2er. 
 
 SYLVAN HOLT'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 By Holme Lee, Author of ** Kathie 
 Brande," &c. 2Qd edition. 3 vols. 
 
 "The well-estahlished reputation of Holme 
 Lee, as a novel writer^ will receive an additional 
 glory fi"om the publication of 'Sylvan Holt's 
 Daughter.' It is a charming tale of country life 
 iind character."— GZo6e. 
 
 " There is much that is attractive in ' Sylvan 
 Holt's Daughter,' much that is graceful and re- 
 fined, much that is ftesh, healthy, and natural." 
 —Press. 
 
 "The conception of the story has a good deal of 
 originality, and the characters avoid common- 
 place types, without being unnatural or improba- 
 ble. The heroine herself is charming. It ia a 
 novel in which there is much to Interest and 
 please."— iVew Quarterlj/ Review. 
 
 "A novel that is well worth reading, and which 
 possesses the cai-dinal virtue of being extremely 
 interesting."— ^i/icnonfrm. 
 
 "A really sound, good book, highly finished, 
 true to nature, vigorous, passionate, honest, and 
 sincere."— JJafiiin university Magazine. 
 
 MY LADY ! A Tale of Modern 
 Life. 2 vols. 
 
 "'My Lady' is a fine specimen of an English 
 matron, exhibiting that union of strength and 
 gentleness, of common sense and romance, or 
 energy and grace, which nearly approaches our 
 ideal of womanhood.'*— Presa. , , „ 
 
 " ' My Lady' evinces chai-ming feehng and deli- 
 cacy of touch. It is a novel that will be read with 
 interest."— A«/ieM(B2Mn. 
 
 " The story is told throughout with great 
 strength of feeling, is well written, and has a 
 plot which is by no means common-place."— 
 Exa/mi/ner. , , , » ^ , 
 
 "There is some force and a good deal or fresn- 
 ness in ' My Lady.* The characters are distinctly 
 drawn, and often wear an ajtpearance of indi- 
 viduality, or almost personality. The execution 
 is fresh and powerful."— ^;J)eeEa£or. 
 
 "A tale of some ^^ovfer." —National Review. 
 
 " It is not in every novel we can light upon a 
 style so vigorously gracefid— upon an mtelligence 
 so refined without littleness, so tenderly truthful, 
 which has sensibility rather than poetry; hut 
 which is also most siibtly and searchingly power- 
 ful."— J3m6M71 Unwersitj/ Magazine. , , 
 
 " Care has been bestowed on the writing, which 
 is pleasant and flowing. The descriptions of nature 
 are truthful and delicately 6i'awn."'-JEconomt8t. 
 
 GASTON BLIGH. ByL.S.LAVENir, 
 Author of " Erlesmere." 2 vols. 
 "'Gaaton Bligh' ia a good story,, admirably 
 told, full of stirring; incident, auataining to the 
 cloae the interest of a very ingenioua plot, and 
 abounding in clever sketches of character. It 
 sparkles with wit, and will reward perusal.' — 
 
 "The story is told with gi'eat power; the whole 
 book sparkles with esprit: and the characters 
 talk lilte gentlemen and ladies. It ia vei-y enjoy- 
 able reading."— Pre**. 
 
 THE PROFESSOR. By Currer 
 Bell. 2 vols. 
 
 "We think the author's frienda have shown 
 sound judgment in. publishing the ' Professor,' 
 now that she is gone. ... It shows the first 
 germs of conception, which afterwards expanded 
 and ripened into the great creations of her imagi- 
 nation. At the same time her advisers were 
 eriually right when they counselled her not to 
 publish it in her li: etioie. . . . But it abounds 
 in merits."— iSaiiwci ay Review. 
 
 " The idea is original, and wo every here ana. 
 there detect germs of that power which took tho 
 world by storm in 'Jane Eyre.* The rejection of 
 the 'Professor' was, in our opinion, no less ad- 
 vantageous to theyouug authoress than ci-editahli 
 to the discernment of ttie booksellers."- Preas. 
 
 " Anything which throws li^ht upon the growth 
 and composition of such a mind cannot be other- 
 wise than interesting. In the ' Professor ' we may 
 discover the germs of many trains of thinking, 
 which afterwards came to be enlarged and 
 illustrated in subsequent and more perfect 
 works."- Criiic. 
 
 '* There is much new insight in it, much ex- 
 ti'emely characteristic genius, and one character, 
 moreover, of fi-esher, lighter, and more airy 
 gr&ce."— Economist. 
 
 " We have read it with the deepest interest ; 
 and confidently predict that this legacy of Char- 
 lotte Brontfi'a genius will renew and confirm the 
 general admiration of her extraordinary powers." 
 —JEcleiitic. 
 
 BELOW THE SURFACE. 3 vols. 
 
 "The book ia unquestionably clever and enter- 
 taining. The writer develops from first to last 
 his double view of human lire, as coloured by the 
 manners of our age. ... It is a tale superior 
 to ordinary novels, in its practical application to 
 the phases of actuanife."—jJtAe7iiK?f»!, 
 
 " There is agreat deal of cleverness in this story ; 
 a much greater knowledge of country life and 
 character in its various aspects and conditions 
 than is possessed by nine-tenths of the novelists 
 who undertake to describe it."— S'pectator. 
 
 " The novel is one that keeps the attention fixed, 
 and it ia written in a genial, often pl^ful tone. 
 The temper is throughout excQl\ent."— Examiner. 
 
 "Thisis abook which possesses the rare merit 
 of being exactly what it claims to be, a story of 
 English country life : and, moreover, a very weU 
 told story."— Daily News. 
 
 " 'Below the Surface' merits high praise. It is 
 full of good things; good taste— good feeling- 
 good writing— goott notions, and high morality." 
 —Qlohe. 
 
 "Temperate, sensible, kindly, and pleasant."— 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 "A more pleasant story we have not read for 
 many a day."— .BrtiisA Quarterly, 
 
 THE THREE CHANGES. 
 
 By the Author of "The Fair 
 Carew." 3 vols. 
 
 " This novel is of a more solid texture than 
 most of its contemporaries. It is full of good 
 sense, good thought, and good wYitvag."—Statev 
 man. 
 
 " Some of the characters and romantic situa- 
 tions are strongly marked and peculiarly original-. 
 . . . It is the great merit of the authoress that 
 the personages of her tale ai'e human and real."— 
 Leader. 
 
 THE CRUELEST WRONG OF ALL. 
 
 By the Author of "Margaret ; or, 
 Prejudice at Home." 1 vol. 
 
 " The author has a pathetic vein, and there is a 
 tender sweetness in the tone of her naiTation."— 
 Leader. 
 
 'lit has the first requisite of a work meant to 
 amuse: it ia aoiusing."- Gio6e. 
 
 21 
 
"W^ORICS I'TIBLISHEr* BY 
 
 NEW NOVELS— conimwed 
 
 KATHIE BRANDE; a Fireside His- 
 tory or A Quiet Life. By 
 Holme Lee. 2 vols. 
 
 " ' Kathie Brande ' is not merely a, very interest- 
 ing novel— it is a very wholesome one, for it 
 leaclies virtually example."— Ori^. 
 
 "Throughout 'Kathie Brande' there is much 
 sweetness, andconsiderablepowerof description." 
 —Saturdaj/ Jteviem. 
 
 " ' Kathie Brande ' is intended to iHustrate the 
 paramount excellence of duty as a moviuf; prin- 
 ciple. It is full of heauties."— BaiZy News. 
 
 " Certainlv one of the beat novels that we have 
 lately read."— Oztordion. 
 
 EVA DESMOND j or, Mutation. 
 3 vols. 
 
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 full of interest."— Jtforwimfir Post. 
 
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 THE NOBLE TRAYTOUR. 
 
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 staaie. The author has imbued himself with the 
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 "The story is told with a graphic and graceful 
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 tion of the scholar.the antiquary, and the genersil 
 reader."- Po»<. 
 
 PERVERSION ; or, The Causes and 
 Consequences of Infidelity. By 
 the late Kev. W. J. Conyeeare. 
 3 vols. 
 
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 lingers with the reader after he has closed the 
 'book."—AtheneBum. 
 
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 " It is long, very long, since wo have read a 
 narrative or more power than thia."'— British 
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 'This is a good and a noble book."— iVew 
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 THE WHITE HOUSE BY THE SEA: 
 
 A Love Story. By M. Bethxm- 
 
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 " ThQ narrative aaid scenes esbibit feminine 
 
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 By Mary C. Jackson, Author of 
 
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 Mackenzie. 3 vols. 
 
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 RIVERSTON. By Georgiana M. 
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 "A decidedly good novel. The book is a very 
 clever one, containing much good writing, well 
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 —l>aMy News, 
 
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 ■v/or]£.."—Athenasum. 
 
 FARINA. By George Meredith. 
 1 vol. 
 
 *'A masque of ravishers in steel, of robber 
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 FRIENDS OF BOHEMIA, - 
 
 OR, Phases oe London Liee. By 
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 Romance op Venice. By Thomas 
 
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 NOVELS 
 
 A NEW NOVEL. 
 
 22 
 
 FORTHCOMING. 
 
 By Nathahiel Hawthoene, Author of "The Scarlet 
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 A NEW NOVEL. By the Author of " My Lady," 3 vols. 
 And other Works of Fiction by Popular Authors, 
 
SSXITH, ELX)En -A^Nr) CO. 
 
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 23 
 
AVOKKS 3?TJJBI.ISI3:ii:r) by SlVtlTH, E3LX)ER & CO. 
 
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 London : Printed by Smith, Eldeb and Co., Little Green Arlonr Court, E.C. 
 
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