ESTEEMED FRIEND,--If I have been hitherto a silent, I have not been an
indifferent, spectator of the movements now going on in our religious
Society. Perhaps from lack of faith, I have been quite too solicitous
concerning them, and too much afraid that in grasping after new things we
may let go of old things too precious to be lost. Hence I have been
pleased to see from time to time in thy paper very timely and fitting
articles upon a _Hired Ministry_ and _Silent Worship_.
The present age is one of sensation and excitement, of extreme measures
and opinions, of impatience of all slow results. The world about us
moves with accelerated impulse, and we move with it: the rest we have
enjoyed, whether true or false, is broken; the title-deeds of our
opinions, the reason of our practices, are demanded. Our very right to
exist as a distinct society is questioned. Our old literature--the
precious journals and biographies of early and later Friends--is
comparatively neglected for sensational and dogmatic publications. We
bear complaints of a want of educated ministers; the utility of silent
meetings is denied, and praying and preaching regarded as matters of will
and option. There is a growing desire for experimenting upon the dogmas
and expedients and practices of other sects. I speak only of admitted
facts, and not for the purpose of censure or complaint. No one has less
right than myself to indulge in heresy-hunting or impatience of minor
differences of opinion. If my dear friends can bear with me, I shall not
find it a hard task to bear with them.
But for myself I prefer the old ways. With the broadest possible
tolerance for all honest seekers after truth! I love the Society of
Friends. My life has been nearly spent in laboring with those of other
sects in behalf of the suffering and enslaved; and I have never felt like
quarrelling with Orthodox or Unitarians, who were willing to pull with
me, side by side, at the rope of Reform. A very large proportion of my
dearest personal friends are outside of our communion; and I have learned
with John Woolman to find "no narrowness respecting sects and opinions."
But after a kindly and candid survey of them all, I turn to my own
Society, thankful to the Divine Providence which placed me where I am;
and with an unshaken faith in the one distinctive doctrine of Quakerism--
the Light within--the immanence of the Divine Spirit in Christianity. I
cheerfully recognize and bear testimony to the good works and lives of
those who widely differ in faith and practice; but I have seen no truer
types of Christianity, no better men and women, than I have known and
still know among those who not blindly, but intelligently, hold the
doctrines and maintain the testimonies of our early Friends. I am not
blind to the shortcomings of Friends. I know how much we have lost by
narrowness and coldness and inactivity, the overestimate of external
observances, the neglect of our own proper work while acting as
conscience-keepers for others. We have not, as a society, been active
enough in those simple duties which we owe to our suffering fellow-
creatures, in that abundant labor of love and self-denial which is never
out of place. Perhaps our divisions and dissensions might have been
spared us if we had been less "at ease in Zion." It is in the decline of
practical righteousness that men are most likely to contend with each
other for dogma and ritual, for shadow and letter, instead of substance
and spirit. Hence I rejoice in every sign of increased activity in doing
good among us, in the precious opportunities afforded of working with the
Divine Providence for the Freedmen and Indians; since the more we do, in
the true spirit of the gospel, for others, the more we shall really do
for ourselves. There is no danger of lack of work for those who, with an
eye single to the guidance of Truth, look for a place in God's vineyard;
the great work which the founders of our Society began is not yet done;
the mission of Friends is not accomplished, and will not be until this
world of ours, now full of sin and suffering, shall take up, in jubilant
thanksgiving, the song of the Advent: "Glory to God in the highest!
Peace on earth and good-will to men!"
It is charged that our Society lacks freedom and adaptation to the age in
which we live, that there is a repression of individuality and manliness
among us. I am not prepared to deny it in certain respects. But, if we
look at the matter closely, we shall see that the cause is not in the
central truth of Quakerism, but in a failure to rightly comprehend it; in
an attempt to fetter with forms and hedge about with dogmas that great
law of Christian liberty, which I believe affords ample scope for the
highest spiritual aspirations and the broadest philanthropy. If we did
but realize it, we are "set in a large place."
"We may do all we will save wickedness."
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
Quakerism, in the light of its great original truth, is "exceeding
broad." As interpreted by Penn and Barclay it is the most liberal and
catholic of faiths. If we are not free, generous, tolerant, if we are
not up to or above the level of the age in good works, in culture and
love of beauty, order and fitness, if we are not the ready recipients of
the truths of science and philosophy,--in a word, if we are not full-
grown men and Christians, the fault is not in Quakerism, but in
ourselves. We shall gain nothing by aping the customs and trying to
adjust ourselves to the creeds of other sects. By so doing we make at
the best a very awkward combination, and just as far as it is successful,
it is at the expense of much that is vital in our old faith. If, for
instance, I could bring myself to believe a hired ministry and a written
creed essential to my moral and spiritual well-being, I think I should
prefer to sit down at once under such teachers as Bushnell and Beecher,
the like of whom in Biblical knowledge, ecclesiastical learning, and
intellectual power, we are not likely to manufacture by half a century of
theological manipulation in a Quaker "school of the prophets." If I must
go into the market and buy my preaching, I should naturally seek the best
article on sale, without regard to the label attached to it.
I am not insensible of the need of spiritual renovation in our Society.
I feel and confess my own deficiencies as an individual member. And I
bear a willing testimony to the zeal and devotion of some dear friends,
who, lamenting the low condition and worldliness too apparent among us,
seek to awaken a stronger religious life by the partial adoption of the
practices, forms, and creeds of more demonstrative sects. The great
apparent activity of these sects seems to them to contrast very strongly
with our quietness and reticence; and they do not always pause to inquire
whether the result of this activity is a truer type of practical
Christianity than is found in our select gatherings. I think I
understand these brethren; to some extent I have sympathized with them.
But it seems clear to me, that a remedy for the alleged evil lies not in
going back to the "beggarly elements" from which our worthy ancestors
called the people of their generation; not in will-worship; not in
setting the letter above the spirit; not in substituting type and symbol,
and oriental figure and hyperbole for the simple truths they were
intended to represent; not in schools of theology; not in much speaking
and noise and vehemence, nor in vain attempts to make the "plain
language" of Quakerism utter the Shibboleth of man-made creeds: but in
heeding more closely the Inward Guide and Teacher; in faith in Christ not
merely in His historical manifestation of the Divine Love to humanity,
but in His living presence in the hearts open to receive Him; in love for
Him manifested in denial of self, in charity and love to our neighbor;
and in a deeper realization of the truth of the apostle's declaration:
"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit
the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself
unspotted from the world."
In conclusion, let me say that I have given this expression of my
opinions with some degree of hesitation, being very sensible that I have
neither the right nor the qualification to speak for a society whose
doctrines and testimonies commend themselves to my heart and head, whose
history is rich with the precious legacy of holy lives, and of whose
usefulness as a moral and spiritual Force in the world I am fully
assured.