The most important and the best known of the special testimonies of which I have now to speak is that which has been steadily borne by our members against all war. Friends have ever maintained and acted upon the belief that war and strife of all kinds are opposed to the spirit and the teaching of Christ, and have felt themselves, as His disciples, precluded from engaging in them. They have steadfastly refused to take up arms at the bidding of any human authority, or in the presence of any danger. This course of conduct has, of course, brought them into frequent collision with the civil power, and needs for its justification, as Friends are the first to acknowledge, the warrant of a higher than any national authority.
It is, indeed, an awful position which we have thus been bold to take up—the position of those who feel themselves called upon to act as the salt of the earth, as leaders who refuse to be led. I do not hesitate to confess that this attitude of possible resistance to the demands of our country in the presence of a common danger was the one part of the Quaker ideal which I for a time seriously hesitated to accept. So long as I understood it tobe accompanied by or based upon any condemnation of those who conscientiously believe that their duty to God requires them to yield unqualified obedience to the demands of their country for military service, I was unable to accept it. But when I came to understand that the Quaker testimony against all war did not take the form of any ethical theory of universal application, but was simply the acting out in one’s own person and at one’s own risk of obedience to that which one’s own heart had been taught to recognize as Divine authority, even where its commands transcended and came into collision with those of the nation, I felt at once that the position was not only perfectly tenable, but was the only one worthy of faithful disciples.
So long as our country is but very imperfectly Christianized, it is impossible not to recognize that an insuperable contradiction may at any time arise between the demands upon our loyalty and obedience which may be made in its name, and those of the spirit of Christ. It would assuredly not be acting in His spirit to make light of disobedience to law; but neither can any Christian hesitate for a moment when called upon to choose which Master he shall obey. It seems to me that if any man be prepared in the true spirit of a martyr to rise above his country’s sense of right,and to serve his country in the highest sense by disobeying and withstanding such of its requirements as in his heart he believes to be wrong and ungodly, it is impossible to withhold from such a man the respect and the admiration which we all feel for the martyrs of old. I do not see how the national standard of duty can be raised—how, in other words, the nation can ever be thoroughly Christianized—except through individual faithfulness, at all costs and at all risks, to a higher view of duty than that held by the nation at large.
Here, of course, we are confronted with the question,Isour view of duty truly a higher one than that of the nation at large? Does the teaching of Jesus Christ really call us to abstain from all warfare?
It seems to me that not only Friends’ testimony, but the teaching of our Master Himself on this subject have been much, and in a sense inevitably, misunderstood. The subject is profoundly complex, and much of what is said and written about it sounds altogether unsubstantial and unpractical, because neither the depth and intricacy of the evil, nor the far-reaching and full significance of the principles opposed to it, are sufficiently felt. “I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to himthe other also.” Surely this does not point to an abject submission or a tame indifference, but to anundauntedpersistence in blessing—a fearless overcoming of evil with good. It is an appeal to an unchanging and fundamental principle, rather than a mere rule of conduct. The whole passage breathes a spirit of ardent confidence in the supremacy of goodness; in the power of the Perfect One who makes His sun to shine upon the just and the unjust, and sends rain upon the unthankful and the evil; it is a call to us to be perfect, even as our Father is perfect; not a suggestion that we should abandon or relax our conflict with evil, but an assurance that we are not at its mercy—that He who is with us is stronger than all they who can be against us, and that in His strength we can and must meet evil with good and overcome it.
Those who would follow Him who thus spoke, must rise above all personal considerations, and above every temptation to retaliate—not fall below them. This, surely, was the spirit in which William Penn won his victories in the early days of Pennsylvania—the bloodless victories which make his name to this day a word of love and honour amongst the Indians, with whom his treaty of peace was never broken. It was not by lyingdown like sheep to be slaughtered by them, but by going forward to meet them with open hands and a trusting heart, and by honourably and generously recognizing their rights and paying them a fair price for their lands, that he and his followers turned suspicion and hatred into firm friendship.
We are called to rise above the level of fighting pagans, not to fall below it. There is, indeed, a lower depth than that of the military spirit—the depth of complacent mammon-worship. To our shame be it confessed that this spirit may clothe itself under the profession of “non-resistance.” When the salt so loses its savour, it is truly fit for nothing but to be cast out and trodden underfoot. But we are concerned here not with the deplorable caricature of that “testimony against all war” which has for two hundred years been at once the boast and the reproach of Quakerism, but with its essence and true significance. These lie in the fact that Friends have, one by one, individually and unitedly, been led by obedience to the spirit of Christ to abstain from fighting and from all concern, so far as it has been possible to clear themselves from it, in strife of any kind. This is surely clear and solid ground to take, and quite distinct from any attempt or necessity for laying down general and comprehensive formulæ of conductapplicable to all cases, to all persons and all bodies. To formulate such general rules is, in truth, foreign to the spirit of Quakerism. To yield one’s self unreservedly to Divine guidance; resolutely, and at whatever cost, to refuse to participate in that which one’s own conscience has been taught to condemn;—this is the ancient and inestimable Quaker ideal. It is surely the best, the most effectual, the most Christian way of witnessing against evil, and of arousing the consciences of others.
There is not, I believe, any possibility of dispute, I will not say amongst Christians, but amongst rational beings, as to the enormity of the evil of strife and discord, whether between nations or between individuals. The question upon which we Friends differ from other Christians is not the question whether peace be desirable—whether it be not, in fact, the goal of all political effort—but what are the means by which it is to be attained or maintained. Other Christians do not deny that quarrelling is contrary to the spirit of Christ, and we do not deny that a holy warfare is to be continually maintained against evil in every form. But we regard the opposing of violence by violence as a suicidal and hopeless method of proceeding; we feel, as Christians, that the weapons of our warfareare not carnal. We cannot, by taking military service, place ourselves at the absolute disposal of a power which may at any time employ its soldiers for purposes so questionable and often so unhallowed.
To abstain, on these grounds, from all participation in warfare is surely a quite different thing from laying down any general theory as to the “unlawfulness” of war. I own that it does not appear to me to be right or wise to blame those who are acting in obedience to their own views of duty, however much they may differ from our own. I do not think it can serve any good purpose to ignore the force of the considerations by which war appears to many people to be justified. I would even go further, and admit that, under all the complicated circumstances of the world (including historical facts and treaty obligations), there are cases in which men may be actually bound to fight in what they believe to be a just cause; although it does not, I believe, follow that every individual would be justified in taking part in such warfare. Would any one say that at the time of the Indian Mutiny the Governor-General of India ought not to have permitted the use of arms for the protection of the women and children? I doubt whether any Friend would be found to maintain this. Butit is equally to be remembered that no true Friend could well have occupied the position of the Governor-General. No nation which had from the beginning of its history been thoroughly Christian could, I suppose, have found itself in the position which we occupied in India in 1857. Were all the world, in the true and full sense of the word, Christian, such events obviously would not occur. Had we been from the first a thoroughly Christian nation, our whole history must have been different, and would (as we Friends believe) have been infinitely nobler.
We do not profess to lay down any general rule, by obedience to which war can be instantly dispensed with by nations in their unregenerate state, and without a sacrifice. A fully Christian nation has never yet been seen on earth. It may well be that such a nation, could it now come suddenly into existence, would meet with national martyrdom. Meanwhile it is the imperfection of our Christianity and the mixed and complex nature of national affairs which make it so difficult to apply to national action any pure principles of conduct. This is not to deny the existence of such principles. To recognize the difficulty, nay, the impossibility, of suddenly or sweepingly applying them to practice, is not to deny their leavening power. Whenwe Friends speak of what is “right,” we refer not to any external and rigid rule of conduct, but to that which in each individual case is truly the best and the highest course open to the individual. To say this is not to say that right is in itself variable. It is only to say what will, I think, be denied by few, that the human ideal of right is progressive, not stationary.
We do, however, further say, what undoubtedlyisdenied by many, that the ideal revealed to us in the life and the words of Jesus Christ our Lord, and gradually being worked out in His own people through His ever-present inward influence, is the highest and the purest conceivable; and that, therefore, all real progress must be an approach towards Him. It is this Christian ideal which, as it gains possession of the human mind, must extinguish the spirit which leads to strife and warfare.
It is commonly supposed that Friends have some special scruple about the use of physical force in any case. This is, I believe, by no means true of the Society at large, although the popular notion may very likely be founded upon fact as regards individuals. As a body, Friends have always recognized “the just authority of the civil magistracy,” and have, I believe, never disputed the lawfulness of the use of “the sword” (whatevermay be meant by that expression) in maintaining that authority.[19]George Fox himself repeatedly reminded magistrates that they should not “bear the sword in vain,” but that they should use it for the punishment of evil-doers, not of those who did well.
It is not, as I understand it, the use of physical force, or even the suffering caused by the use of it, which really makes war hateful in Christian eyes; but the evil passions, the “lusts” from which it springs, and to which, alas! it so hideously ministers. The dispassionate infliction of punishment by an impartial and a lawful authority surely stands upon a quite different footing from that “biting and devouring one another” which, whether between nations or between individuals, it is the very aim and object of law to suppress. Suffering inflicted for the purpose of maintaining peace cannot, I think, be condemned by the advocates of peace unless it be on the ground of failure.
I own that I personally cannot but recognize that upon this view certain wars appear to be not only inevitable but justifiable, as partaking of the nature of national police operations. I cannot, therefore, regard all war as wholly and unmitigatedly blamable, although I can hardly imagine any war which does not both come from evil and lead to evil.
Again, there are treaty obligations requiring us in certain cases to take up arms for the protection of weaker nations, from which we could not suddenly recede without a breach of national good faith. It surely does not become us, in our zeal for peace, to make light of, or overlook, such considerations as this. They should, I think, in the first place lead us to abstain from sweeping generalizations, and from blaming those who are ready to lay down their lives in obedience to their country’s call and in our defence, or the defence of the oppressed in other countries; while yet we resolutely maintain our own obedience to that higher authority by which we have, as we believe, been taught a better way—a way incompatible with outward strife—of giving our lives for the common weal. We should be very careful how we call that a wicked action which a good man may honestly do in obedience to his own sense of duty; we should be still more careful lest, while professingto take higher ground, we do in fact fall far short of such men in our lives; but we must, for all that, be faithful to the light we have.
And, in the second place, it seems to me that the true inference from the consideration of the complicated conditions of international affairs is that the time is not yet ripe for the assumption of all offices of public authority by thorough-going Christians. Our place surely still is mainly to leaven, not to govern, the world.
The world must become the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ before wars and fightings will cease from amongst men. And the world is very far as yet from acknowledging that dominion in anything but words. Yet we do “profess and call ourselves Christians”; we do live in the full light of the everlasting gospel; and however it may be rejected or discarded, however far even those who profess it may be from entering into its spirit, it has yet, in spite of ourselves, raised us out of the possibility of consistent paganism. We cannot return to the old condition of things, in which nations thought it no shame to strive each for its own petty objects, and to be reckless of each other’s interests. There is no satisfactory resting-place for us now on any lower level than that which Christ has brought to light. Under the name of“altruism,” this is recognized even by those who think of Christianity as a worn-out superstition. We who believe it to be the power of God unto salvation are surely bound to yield ourselves heart and soul to its emancipating influence—to its indestructible, irresistible appeal to us to “live as brethren.” As in the beginning it was felt by some at least to be as clear as daylight that “Christians cannot fight,” so now, not only amongst Friends, but in many another Christian body, the same spirit is working, and consciences are awakening to the utter incompatibility of strife and retaliation and reckless self-aggrandizement with the spirit of brotherhood which lies at the very foundation of Christianity. They had need to awake; now, at the eleventh hour, with all Europe making itself ready for war, it may yet be that the few in whom the fire of Christian zeal is burning in its purity may see their cause and the cause of their Master begin to prevail against overwhelming odds. But whether the nations will hear or whether they will forbear, wherever two or three Christians meet together, there still will be a protest against strife and selfishness.
A protest against strife and selfishness; not only against strife, but against “the greedy spirit which leads to strife.” If we are willing to go down tothe root in this matter, if we truly desire to do what in us lies towards ridding the earth not only of wars and fightings, but of all forms of oppression and cruelty, must we not recognize that the very first step is to be ourselves freed from covetousness?
For who can doubt that it is mainly about outward and material things that nations or individuals are led into quarrels? Who will venture to say that, if none of us desired either to get or to keep more than our share of this world’s goods, there would be anything like the amount of fighting, or of preparation for it, which now devastates the earth? We may be skeptical about the possibility of any general acceptance of arbitration or disarmament. To be skeptical about the possibility of personal disinterestedness would imply a very different sort of blindness. It seems to me that in struggling to rise and to raise others more and more clearly above the greedy spirit which leads to war, is the best hope for many of us of contributing in any real sense to the cause of peace on earth.
It was long ago recognized by Friends that (to use the words of John Woolman) “in every degree of luxury are the seeds of war and oppression.” The connection between luxury and cruelty is, indeed, almost a truism, but it is one of those truisms of which it is unfortunately easy to losesight; and I fear that even amongst Friends the familiar testimonies against all war and against superfluities are apt to be held without any vivid sense of their vital connection.
No one, surely, will deny that the selfish desire of mere pleasure, when allowed to rule, will feed itself at the expense of suffering and privation to others; that it does cause that scramble for gain in which the weak are trampled upon, and every furious passion is stimulated.[20]The difficulty in regard to bearing a practical testimony against superfluities is not that which some of us feel in the case of war—that we do not know where to take hold, that our personal and daily conduct seems to have no immediate bearing upon questions of international policy, and that the whole problem eludes our grasp by its very vastness. It is, rather, that we do notliketo put our shoulder to the wheel of simplifying life for ourselves and others; that we do not see the beauty of severity; that we love softness, or yield to it for want of any purifying fire of hope.
But yet, in one form or another, often extravagantly,foolishly, even injuriously, an ineradicable instinct has prompted Christians in all times to free themselves from luxurious and self-indulgent ways of living; to walk as disciples of Him who “had not where to lay His head;” to lay aside, not only every sin, but every weight, that so they may run the race set before them, not as beating the air, but as those who strive for the victory.
It is, indeed, not easy to define the precise kind or amount of luxury which is incompatible with Christian simplicity; or rather it must of necessity vary. But the principle is, I think, clear. In life, as in art, whatever does not help, hinders. All that is superfluous to the main object of life must be cleared away, if that object is to be fully attained. In all kinds of effort, whether moral, intellectual, or physical, the essential condition of vigour is a severe pruning away of redundance. Is it likely that the highest life, the life of the Christian body, can be carried on upon easier terms?
The higher our ideal of life, the greater, indeed, must be the sacrifices which it will require from us. As we rise from the lower to the higher objects of life, many things of necessity become superfluous to us—in other words, we become independent of them, or outgrow them. This is a widely different idea from that of ascetic self-disciplineor self-mortification; and it is surely a sounder and a worthier idea.
The Quaker ideal, as I understand it, requires a continual weighing of one thing against another—a continual preference of the lasting and deep over the transient and superficial. “Weightiness” is one of the Friends’ characteristic and emphatic forms of commendation. To sacrifice any deep and substantial advantage to outward show is abhorrent to the Quaker instinct. To “stretch beyond one’s compass” grasping at shadows, and encumbering oneself with more than is needed for simple, wholesome living, is at variance with all our best traditions.
If we bear in mind the essentially relative meaning of the word “superfluous,” it is obvious that such a testimony against “superfluities” does not require any rigid or niggardly rule as to outward things. To my own mind, indeed, this view of the matter seems to require at least as clearly the liberal use of whatever is truly helpful to “our best life” as the abandonment of obstructing superfluities. No doubt a testimony against superfluities is very liable to degenerate into formality, and to be so misapplied as to cut off much that is in reality wholesome, innocent, and beautiful. Art has to a great extent been banished from manyQuaker homes; and a considerable amount of injury has no doubt been done by such rigid severity, and perhaps still more by the very natural consequent reaction. But it would, I believe, be quite a mistake to suppose that the extreme plainness in dress and other surroundings adopted by the stricter Friends, and formerly made a matter of discipline by the Society, was originally adopted with any intention of self-mortification or asceticism.[21]
I believe that asceticism is in a very deep sense contrary to the real Quaker spirit, which desires in all things to abstain from any interference “in the will of man” with Divine discipline and guidance, and which would, I believe, regard the idea of self-chosen exercises in mortification of the flesh with the same aversion as it entertains for pre-arranged forms of worship. Friends, no doubt, have often believed themselves required to submit to the adoption of the plain dress “in the cross” to natural inclination, and have felt it a valuable exercise to do so; but the plainness was not devised for that purpose, but chosen (or rather, as Friends would say, they wereled into it by Truth) because of its inherent suitableness and rightness. It is an outcome of the instinctively felt necessity of subordinating everything to principle. Its chief significance is that of a protest against bondage to passing fashions, and for this reason it is a settled costume. It is also felt that our very dress should show forth that inward quietness of spirit which does not naturally tend towards outward adornment, and the Friends’ recognized dress is therefore one of extreme sobriety in colour and simplicity in form.
It is a significant fact that there is really no such thing as a precisely defined Quaker costume. The dress is certainly precise enough in itself, and to the naked eye of the outside observer it may appear to present an undeviating uniformity; but it is really not a uniform in the sense in which a nun’s or a soldier’s dress is a uniform. It is in all respects a growth, a tradition, a language; and it is subject to constant though slow modification. Any perfectly unadorned dress of quiet colour, without ornament or trimming, if habitually worn, is in fact, to all intents and purposes, the Quaker costume, though one or two details have by a sort of accident acquired a traditional meaning as a badge, which one may adopt or not according to one’s feeling about badges. Some Friends nowadaysobject on principle to anything of the kind. Others still see a “hedge” or shelter in them. Others, again, feel that they serve a useful and innocent purpose in enabling Friends readily to recognize one another, and that it is not amiss for them to be easily recognized even by outsiders. But the one important matter of principle which the Society as a body have recognized, is that it is a waste of time and money for which Christian women can hardly fail to find better employment, to condescend to be perpetually changing the fashion of one’s garments in obedience to the caprice or the restlessness of the multitude. “Plain Friends” are those who are resolved to dress according to the settled principles which commend themselves to their own mind, not enslaving themselves to passing fashion.
It is easy to say that they do but exchange one bondage for another. That may, indeed, have been the case at times, and may even still be so in some families or meetings. But the crystallizing into rigid formality, though a possible tendency, is no real part of the true Quaker ideal. My own strong feeling is that the adoption of a settled costume, at any rate in mature life and from conviction, is not only the right and most dignified course on moral grounds, but also that it has inactual experience afforded one more proof of the truth that the lower aims of life can thrive only in proportion as they are kept in subordination to the higher. The freedom from the necessity of perpetual changes, which commends itself to Friends as suitable to the dignity of “women professing godliness,” has also the lower advantage of admitting a gradual bringing to perfection of the settled costume itself. We all know how exquisite, within its severely limited range, can be the result. The spotless delicacy, the precision and perfection of plain fine needlework, the repose of the soft tints, combine, in the dress of some still lingering representatives of the old school of Quakerism, to produce a result whose quiet beauty appeals to both the mind and the eye with a peculiar charm. I cannot think that such mute eloquence is to be despised; or that it is unworthy of Christian women to be careful that their very dress shall speak a language of quietness, gentleness, and purity—that it shall be impressive even with a touch of eternity.
This principle of Christian simplicity should, in our view, run through everything—dress, furniture, habits of life, and forms of speech; all should be severely purged from redundance, and from mere imitation and conventionality. The “plain language,” best known as leading to the use oftheeandthouforyouin speaking to one person, and of first, second, etc., for the days of the week and the months, instead of the ordinary names “derived from heathen deities,” was an instance of this endeavour to winnow away every superfluity and every taint of flattery and superstition from our speech. These special peculiarities of speech are, as is well known, completely dropped by many of the present generation of Friends. The changes which have taken place in two hundred years in our language and habits have deprived these expressions of much of their original significance, and the tendency of the present time is no doubt towards the effacing of all peculiarities. But some special attention is still paid amongst us to simplicity and guardedness of language in a wider sense, and surely this is an object well worthy of attention on the highest as well as the lowest grounds.
The idea of a scrupulous guard over the lips, which is so strongly characteristic of all Friends at all worthy of the name, culminates in their united testimony against oaths. This has, indeed, been always regarded by Friends as a matter of simple obedience to a plain command of Jesus Christ; and I think that nothing but long habit could reconcile any sincere disciple to the ordinary interpretationof His words as intended to forbid “profane swearing” only.[22]Many others besides Friends have felt this scruple; but to our Society belongs the indisputable credit of having, through a long and severe course of suffering for their “testimony,” obtained a distinct recognition of the sufficiency in their case of a plain affirmation, thereby vindicating a principle which is beginning to be generally recognized—the principle of having but one rule for all cases, that of plain truth; of being as much bound by one’s word as one’s bond. I think it can hardly be questioned that, through this simple and unflinching course of obedience to the plain injunction of Jesus Christ, Friends have done much to raise the standard of veracity in our country.[23]
The refusal to pay tithes is a part of the testimony against a paid ministry, of which I have sufficiently spoken in the last chapter; and I need here only say that in all these cases of resistance to the demands of authority, for military service, for oaths, or for tithes, the idea has been that ofwitnessing at one’s own cost against unjust or unrighteous demands. It is, I think, fair to claim that it is at one’s own cost that one refuses a demand even for money when it is made by those who have the power to take the money or its equivalent by force, and when no resistance is ever offered to their doing so. Friends have again and again submitted patiently to the levying of much larger sums than those originally claimed, as well as to severe and sometimes lifelong imprisonments, and other penalties, rather than by any act of their own give consent to exactions which they believed to be unrighteous in their origin or purpose. While such unmistakable proofs of disinterestedness were given, the motive for withholding money could hardly be misunderstood. With regard to tithes, however, the circumstances have, since the Tithes Commutation Act, become so complicated, that few Friends now feel a refusal to pay them a suitable method of testifying against a paid ministry, and the Yearly Meeting has placed on record this sense of the alteration of the state of the case in a minute dated 1875:[24]“This meeting believes that the time has arrived when the mode of bearing this testimony must be left to the individual consciences of Friends.”
Amongst lesser matters as to which Friends have made a stand upon principle against prevailing customs, may be mentioned “the superstitious observance of days,” especially that of fasts or thanksgivings prescribed by the civil government (a power which we do not regard as competent to prescribe religious exercises), and the practice of wearing mourning, and placing “inscriptions of a eulogistic character” on tombstones. In Friends’ burial-grounds nothing beyond the name, and the dates of birth and death, is permitted. The objections to wearing mourning are obvious, both on the ground of unnecessary expense and trouble at a time when the mind should surely be left as much as possible undisturbed, and also on that of its being an expression (and an expression so formal as to be of doubtful sincerity) of grief and gloom in regard to providential dispensations which, however painful, we should desire to accept with cheerful submission. There is obviously much to be said for this application of the principle of simplifying our customs, and adjusting our dress and other surroundings to the permanent rather than the transient circumstances of our lives.
To simplify life to the very uttermost—is not this truly in itself a worthy aim; nay, the one inexorable condition of excellence?
We have just now been engaged with comparatively trivial matters—straws which show as no more solid thing can do which way the wind blows. These things are important, not in themselves, but in relation to the principles in honest obedience to which they have been worked out. Simplicity—“the simplicity which is in Christ”—the simplicity, not of exclusion, but of Divine all-subduing supremacy—this is the keynote of our ideal; and it is a keynote to which the human heart must always in some degree respond. At the bottom of all art, of all beauty, and surely, we may say, of all goodness, lies the principle of subordination—the necessity of a perpetual choice between the permanent and the transient, the essential and the superficial. Quakerism is an honest endeavour to carry out this principle in the Christian life; to weigh “in the balance of the sanctuary” the meat that endureth against the meat that perisheth; to cleave to the eternal at the sacrifice, if necessary, of all that is temporal.
I am, of course, not absurd enough to claim that this endeavour is peculiar to Quakerism. My object throughout is to show what are the eternal and unassailable principles of truth to which Quakerism appeals, to which it clings as to its strongholds. And I believe that the severe siftingaway of non-essentials which lies at the foundation of our revolt from accepted ecclesiastical practices, and which has ramified in detail into these minor testimonies, often rigidly and at times even laughably worked out by individuals, is a process more and more urgently needed in these days of rapid growth in all material and intellectual resources.
The permanent danger of giving our labour and our lives “for that which satisfieth not” was surely never more desperate than in these days of hurry and fulness, when merely to stand still needs a resolute effort of will. Are not half the lives we know carried along in a current they know not how to resist towards objects they but vaguely recognize, and in their heart of hearts do not value? Was the bondage of outward things ever more oppressive than it is to many of those who are ostensibly, and ought to be really, in a position of entire outward independence? How many of us have attained to the unspeakable repose of having our centre of gravity in the right place, of leaning upon nothing that can fail?
There is no royal road to ridding ourselves of superfluities. It is a lifelong process of severe purification, which at every turn demands the sacrifice of the lower to the higher. But as thisseverity is the necessary price of attaining what is highest, so also it is the one spell by which life and significance and value can be given to what is lower. If it burns it also brightens; while it destroys it irradiates. I believe it to be in all things true that nothing can have its full value except when rightly subordinated to that which is of more importance than itself. If you sacrifice the higher to the lower, you not only make a bad bargain, but you injure the very object which you thus purchase. That of which you make an idol turns to dust in the process. The idol which you have the courage to pluck from its throne may come to life through that very act. From the closest human affection down to the most trivial outward adornment, all lovely things owe their perfection of loveliness to being held in their due subordination to what is yet higher. “He that will lose his life shall save it;” a hard saying, indeed,—with the hardness of the imperishable rock in which is our fortress and our stronghold.
I have endeavoured to explain what are those principles and practices into which we as a body have been led through what we believe to be obedience to the Spirit of Truth. I know that in some respects we seem to our fellow-Christians to have mistaken the voice of our Guide, and to be, through ignorance perhaps, but yet lamentably, excluding ourselves from the most precious privileges, if not consciously disregarding the most sacred injunctions. It is a very solemn question upon which we thus join issue with almost all the Churches of Christendom;—What is, in fact, essential Christianity?
“By their fruits ye shall know them.” It would ill become me to attempt any estimate of the fruitfulness of that branch of the Christian Church which I have joined as compared with the branch of it in which I was brought up. I have beenoccupied throughout with our ideal, not with the degree of our fulfilment or failure to fulfil it. I feel bound, however, to say that I cannot reconcile the fact of the signs of life and spiritual energy which I find within as well as without the Society with the idea that either branch of the Church is really cut off from the root of the living Vine. Does it follow that our peculiar principles and practices are of no consequence?
I cannot myself believe that this is a legitimate conclusion from the admitted fact that undeniably holy and Christian lives are led within as well as without our borders. That fact does, I think, show at least that everything does not depend either upon the observance or the disuse of outward ordinances—it shows that either course may be pursued in good faith and without destruction to the Christian life; but it is not inconsistent with the belief that results of profound importance to the character of our Christianity are involved in this question of ordinances and orders, and that it therefore behoves us to seek the utmost clearness with regard to it.
This question is the very key of the position of the Society of Friends as a separate body. It is as witnesses to the independence of spiritual life upon outward ordinances that we believe ourselvesespecially called to maintain our place in the universal Church in the present day.
The importance of our separate position is perhaps somewhat obscured in the eyes of some amongst us by the fact that we can no longer assume the vehemently aggressive attitude of the early Friends, as against Christians of other denominations. They believed it to be their duty to attack the “hireling priests” of their day as guilty of “apostasy,” and upholders of the mysterious powers of darkness. In our own day such judgments would imply either the grossest ignorance or else downright insanity. We cannot help knowing, and rejoicing to know, that a large proportion of the clergy are amongst the most devoted and disinterested of the children of light, using their official position, as well as every other power of body and mind, for the promotion of the kingdom of God and the spread of the gospel. We desire nothing better than to fight beside them, shoulder to shoulder, against the common enemy; and we are, in fact, often associated with them in efforts of this kind.
In like manner, it would be impossible for Friends in these days to speak in the tone of the founders of the Society, as though we possessed a degree of light in comparison of which all otherChristians must be considered as groping in thick darkness. The early Friends sometimes spoke of the “breaking forth of the gospel day” through the revelation made to them as of an event almost equal in importance to its original promulgation sixteen hundred years before. In these days we could not with any kind of honesty or justice claim a position so enormously in advance of our neighbours. On all hands we see evidences of fidelity and fruitfulness, and the shining of examples which we rejoice to admire, and desire to emulate.
There is thus, I think, a certain perplexity as to our relative position in the Christian Church which is a cause of some weakness amongst Friends. It is in some respects easier to maintain an aggressive attitude than one of mere quiet separateness; and it would be no wonder if some, especially of our younger members, in these days of free interchange of sympathy, should begin to falter a little as to the importance of our separate position. It is, indeed, one which will not be maintained except as the result of deep and searching spiritual discipline. The testimony against dependence on what is outward cannot be borne to any purpose at second hand. We must ourselves be weaned from all hankering after what is outward and tangible before we can appreciate the valueof a testimony to the sufficiency of the purely spiritual; and that weaning is not an easy process, nor one that can be transmitted from generation to generation. Unless our younger Friends be taught in the same stern school as their forefathers, they will assuredly not maintain the vantage-ground won by the faithfulness of a former generation.
Some other causes have, I believe, tended to confuse our relation to the outer world, and make it important that Friends should look well to their path, and consider whither it is tending; whether we are really guarding the position which it is specially our business to defend, or allowing ourselves to be drawn off into the pursuit of less important matters. There are in the main stream of the Society many currents and counter-currents, and its recent history has been one of change and reaction, so that it would be dangerous and presumptuous for a new-comer to attempt to foretell its course; but I may venture to point out some of the tendencies which are and have been at work amongst us, preparing the conditions under which our future work must be done.
It is well known that the Society, which sprang very rapidly into existence in the middle of the seventeenth century, began during the eighteenth to diminish in numbers, and was for many years asteadily dwindling body. Closed meeting-houses and empty benches are now to be found in all parts of the country where, in former days, the difficulty was to find room for all who came. Within the last thirty or forty years our numbers have, however, begun slowly to increase, although the increase is so far from being equal to the rate of increase of the population at large, that in proportion to other denominations we may still be considered as in a certain sense losing ground. The actual increase, small as it is, is nevertheless a significant fact.[25]
The great falling-off in numbers during the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth centuries was probably caused, in part at least, by the fact that after the early days of growth and persecution there followed a time of outward quietness, in which the value attached to what one may call Quaker tradition became excessive, and resulted in too rigid a discipline. The actual discipline of the Society was applied with a strictness which surely was not altogether wise or wholesome; and the less tangible restraint of public opinion within the borders of a small and very exclusive sect was probably even more oppressive in its rigidity and minuteness of supervision.Until within the last thirty years or thereabouts, it was the almost invariable practice to disown all members who married “out of the Society;” and this restriction must obviously have done much not only to diminish the numbers, but probably also to alienate the affections of successive rising generations. So many of the young people lost or resigned their membership for this and other causes, that, had no change taken place, the days of the Society must to all appearance have been numbered.
But in the early part of this century, owing, in a great measure, to the influence of Joseph John Gurney and his sister, Elizabeth Fry, a new wave of religious and benevolent activity arose; and about the same time, though with what degree of connection with this impulse I do not know, a considerable relaxation of discipline took place. Not only was the practice with regard to marriages out of the Society relaxed, but many minor matters, in which an irksome and, no doubt, often hurtful rigidity had prevailed, began to be deliberately left to the judgment of individuals. In 1861 a revision of the “Book of Discipline” took place, which reflected and sanctioned the relaxation of supervision in regard to these matters. In that year the latter part of the fourth queryrelating to “plainness of speech, behaviour, and apparel,” was dropped, and other changes were made in the queries then in use. The Yearly Meeting, as has been already mentioned, no longer requires that any of the queries should be answered, except those which regard the regularity with which meetings are held and attended. These changes have meant in practice that the maintenance of all our special “testimonies” is now (like that against tithes) “left to the individual conscience,” and not inquired into by the meetings for discipline; and the immediate result has, of course, been a great outward and visible alteration—a rapid disappearance of distinguishing peculiarities, and no doubt an immense relief to the younger members.
A more direct result of the “evangelical” influence of the Gurneys, and others like-minded, was the setting-in of a current of activity in all sorts of benevolent, philanthropic, and missionary directions. The old dread of “creaturely activity,”—of moving in any kind of religious work without an immediate prompting and even constraining influence from above,—seems to have in some degree given place to a fear of burying our talent. The Christian duty of going forth to seek and to save, of holding forth the word of life, and letting our light shine before men, had been beautifullyexemplified by some eminent men and women in the Society. Many of the younger Friends caught the flame of their zeal, and from all quarters, in these modern days, influences combine to make that “sitting still,” in which an earlier generation of Friends had found their strength, appear almost an impossibility.
With the new rising tide of fervent zeal and benevolence came a great change in the prevailing tone of religious feeling. The Bible, which, in their dread lest the letter should usurp the place of the spirit, had amongst Friends been almost put under a bushel, was brought into new prominence, and so-called “evangelical” views respecting the unique or exceptional nature of its inspiration began to be entertained. Gradually the idea of the necessity of teaching “sound doctrine” assumed an importance which had formerly been reserved for that of looking for “right guidance;” and in some quarters a visible tendency has, of late years, been manifest towards more definition of doctrines and popularizing of methods than would have been tolerated half a century ago.[26]