MAY 11 1918 J 
 
 BX 7732 .B388 1889 
 Beck, Mary Elizabeth 
 Collateral testimonies to 
 "Quaker" principles 
 
COLLATEEAL 
 
 TESTIMONIES 
 
 TO 
 
 "QUAKER" 
 PRINCIPLES. 
 
 y 
 
 M. E. BECK. 
 
 Second Edition. Revised and Enlarged, 
 
 Samuel Harris & Co., 
 5, BiSHOPSCATE Without, E.C, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Chapter I.— 1. Introductory Eemarks— 2. Why the 
 Society of Friends were needed — 
 3. From what Eoot sprang their 
 Views on Worship 7 
 
 Chapter II.— Gospel Ministry 28 
 
 Chapter III.— Christ's Reward 45 
 
 Chapter IV. — What the Society of Friends believe 
 
 Respecting the Ordinances 52 
 
 Chapter V.— War 71 
 
 Chapter VI.— Oaths 78 
 
 Chapter VII.— The Ground of Protest against Con- 
 formity to the World hiO 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This little volume has had its origin in lectures 
 prepared by the Writer for vocal delivery, having for 
 their aim the elucidation of the principles held by the 
 Society of Friends. 
 
 Whilst turning her attention to the subject, she has 
 rejoiced to find how nearly in accord with one or 
 other of those Principles, supposed to be peculiar to 
 that Society, were the thoughts of spiritually-minded 
 Christians of widely differing religious denominations, 
 having little, as to outward manifestation, that could 
 be said to be " e?i rapport'' with the simple practices 
 of Friends. That the spirit underlies the letter, and 
 that the life is more than raiment, seems to be the 
 obvious deduction. 
 
 Break away the shell of external observances and 
 the essential element remaining is Christianity, pure 
 and simple, for which Fox pleaded ; and we could 
 almost build up an ideal church after his model by 
 simply gathering together the scattered thoughts of 
 men of deep spiiitual intuition, in various ages, who, 
 unknown to themselves, had a grasp of the same 
 truths which constituted the very genius of so-called 
 Quakerism. 
 
 In these witnesses to the innermost kernel of 
 Christianity, under whatever name, we recognise our 
 fellow-believers and the true unity of the Church of 
 Christ. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 1. Introductory Remarks. 
 
 2. Why the Society of Friends were needed. 
 
 3. From what Root sprang their views on 
 Worship. 
 
 Collateral testimonies from Gr. E. Jacob, Chalmers, Bonar, 
 Vaughan, &c. 
 
 I am not come to destroy hut to fulfil." — Matt. v. 17. 
 
 Before entering upon the subjects immediately 
 before us, it may be well, in a few words, to contrast 
 the spirit of the Old and New Dispensation, as we 
 are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews that the first 
 was to be superseded by the last. 
 
 The Old Dispensation was expressly adapted to the 
 childhood of the race ; it was local, exclusive, typical, 
 and precise. The daily sacrifices, the human priest- 
 hood, the stately temple, '^exceeding magnifical," the 
 appointed feasts, were all fitted to teach through the 
 senses. 
 
 The people of that earlier day were . dealt with as 
 we deal with children — we teach them by pictures 
 and symbols before they are able to grasp abstract 
 truths. In the same way the legislation was precisej 
 
8 
 
 their whole conduct was governed by minute and 
 special rules. Thou shalt " and " thou shalt not " 
 characterise the books of Leviticus and Numbers 
 with an individuality of detail which would seem to 
 us wearisome, just as the Mahomedans, who have 
 never outgrown their childhood, are still kept in tute- 
 lage under 75,000 precepts (so it is said) of the 
 Mussulman code. Yet all through the Psalms and 
 the Prophets, hints of better things in store appear, 
 when God should have educated His people for higher 
 perceptions. " Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would 
 I give it." " The sacrifices of God are a broken 
 spirit." *^^Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the 
 blood of goats ?" " Offer unto God thanksgiving, 
 and pay thy vows unto the Most High." Again, in 
 what glowing language does the prophet Micah point 
 out that no external offerings, however costly, can 
 constitute the essence of true worship. "Will the 
 Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with tens 
 
 of thousands of rivers of oil ? He hath 
 
 shewed thee, 0 man, what is good. And what doth 
 the Lord thy God require of thee but to do justly, and 
 love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ?" 
 
 At last, after long centuries of preparation, ap- 
 peared, during the manhood of the race, the promised 
 Messiah, the Antitype of the figures of the Mosaic 
 ritual. By fulfilling the law He ended it, and intro- 
 duced His own spiritual kingdom. This kingdom in 
 its whole organization formed a strong contrast to the 
 
9 
 
 old law. Principles took the place of precept ; even 
 the sayings of our Lord Himself were, for the most 
 part, suggestive rather than literal, and contained in 
 themselves the power of expansiveness, leaving room 
 for growth in their mode of application. There was 
 nothing cramped or fettering in them — no rigid 
 adhesion to the letter, which would circumscribe the 
 outburst of the life within. No form of worship was 
 prescribed by Him. The emphatic words, God is a 
 Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him 
 in spirit and in truth,'' were left to be interpreted 
 according to the spiritual capacity of the worshipper. 
 Doubtless the worship of the early Christians was 
 founded on the mode of the Jewish synagogue, where 
 a liberty of action appears to have been accorded not 
 generally recognised now.^ The very fact of the 
 establishment of the synagogue worship during the 
 period of the Babylonish captivity was it itself a tacit 
 acknowledgment of the power of expansion admitted, 
 under changed circumstances, even under the rigid 
 formula of the Old Dispensation. " The Apostles,'' 
 says G. A. Jacob, D.D., in his Ecclesiastical Polity of 
 the New Testament, took nothing from the temple 
 system for the machinery of their church government ; 
 they had been divinely taught that those priests and 
 services were typical forms and shadows, which were 
 all centred and fulfilled and done away in Christ, and 
 
 * See Luke iv. 16, and Acts xiii. 15. 
 
10 
 
 to reinstate them in tlie Christian churchy would have 
 been^ in their judgment^ to go back to the bondage of 
 weak and beggarly elements from the liberty, strength, 
 and rich completeness of the gospel dispensation.^^ 
 
 The first band of disciples seem to have met 
 together, sometimes in one house, sometimes in an- 
 other, as a company of brothers and sisters who owned 
 Christ as their common Master. As far as we can 
 judge, no strict formula of worship was laid down, but 
 every one whose heart was filled with the constraining 
 love of Christ, was encouraged to use his gift for the 
 edification of the body ; jet still in right order, one by 
 one, the spirits of the prophets being subject to the 
 prophets, " For God,'^ said the Apostle Paul, " is not 
 the God of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches 
 of the saints." 
 
 We quote again from G. A. Jacob : — " The remarks 
 which St. Paul makes about the public worship of the 
 Corinthian Christians, where every one ^ had a psalm, 
 had a doctrine, had a tongue, had a revelation,^ and 
 did not even observe due order and propriety in 
 
 uttering them are quite incompatible with the 
 
 use of devotional formularies laid down beforehand 
 and known to all the worshippers. And when it is 
 further noticed that St. Paul, though desiring to 
 correct disorders, does not at all condemn or disap- 
 prove of this mode of worship, provided that all 
 things were done decently and in order, and that he 
 neither here nor elsewhere — nor any other of the 
 
11 
 
 Apostles, as far as we are informed — recommended 
 any forms of prayer to be used, it is scarcely possible 
 that there should be any reasonable doubt as to what 
 the practice was at that period/' (Ecclesiastical 
 Polity, p. 219). 
 
 At the end of the second century, or beginning of 
 the third, appear the first indications of buildings 
 specially appropriated to divine service, but these 
 seem to have been of a simple and unpretending 
 nature. No holiness was attached to the place in 
 which they worshipped ; the word whichwe translate 
 church, is used in the New Testament 115 times, and 
 signifies an assembly of persons, not a place. The 
 
 sanctity was in the worshippers who met together in 
 the Saviour's name, and the reverence was given to 
 His spiritual presence, which had been promised to 
 those who should be thus assembled." (Ecclesiastical 
 Polity). But the simplicity which prevailed during 
 the times of persecution in the early Christian Church, 
 banding its fraternity together in one common sym- 
 pathy, quickly gave way to much that was of man's 
 appointment as soon as Christianity became, in 328^ 
 under Constantino, the religion of the State. A kind 
 of compromise appears to have been made between 
 the old heathen practices and those of the new religion, 
 and observances which remind us of the Jewish ritual 
 and Levitical priesthood took the place of the simpli- 
 city which characterised the Gospel of Christ. Churches 
 of costly magnificence were built for the worship of 
 
12 
 
 Him ^' who dwelletli not in temples made with 
 hands.'^^ 
 
 " For us who can look back upon the history of the 
 past/' says G. A. Jacob, before quoted, "to choose 
 for our imitation the florid display of the later time 
 rather than the simplicity of the j^rs^, is surely a grave 
 mistake, and one which ought not to be found in a 
 church in which the New Testament has been for 
 more than 300 years in the hands of the people, and 
 
 its supreme authorship openly avowed The use of 
 
 aesthetic stimulants to devotion, appealing to the 
 sentiments and imagination by means of architectural 
 ornamentation, pictures, crosses, images, etc., which 
 now, as in more ancient times, beguile the ignorant 
 and unwary — will be seen to be not only no aids to 
 Christian doctrine and devotion, but positive hin- 
 drances to them, since in proportion as such things 
 answer the purpose for which they are intended, and 
 engage the attention and affect the feelings, to the 
 same extent do they shut out Gospel truth and hide 
 Christ from the spirit of the worshipper/' 
 
 Co-eval with the adornment of churches came in 
 the use of gold and silver vessels, wax tapers, incense, 
 and the adoption of official vestments for ministers. 
 
 All these were derived from Jewish or heathen 
 practices, as the Church, having lost the freshness 
 
 * " That churches should turn to painted windows, scientific 
 music and the like, as their attractions, shows disease inside and 
 out." — Geikie's ''Life of Christ'' 
 
13 
 
 and fulness of Apostolic trutli_, learned from such 
 objectionable sources to affect a more elaborate cere- 
 monial and to court an exhibition of aesthetic display, 
 quite foreign to the devout simplicity of the Apostolic 
 age." (Ecclesiastical Polity.) 
 
 Ministers of religion began at this time to be sup- 
 ported from the public treasuries; in 416 infant 
 baptism was made imperative in North Africa^ singers 
 were established as an order, under protest, (Xeander 
 tells us) in the IVth Century, and the Creed sung in 
 590. The introduction of organs into public worship 
 did not take place till the Xllth Century. It may 
 here be remarked, by way of parenthesis, though 
 somewhat antedating the course of events, that 
 eminent Christians of various denominations have felt 
 the danger attending that which appeals chiefly to the 
 senses in worship. Herschell, a convert from Judaism, 
 remarks, I firmly believe that if we seek to affect 
 the mind by the aid of architecture, painting, or 
 music, the impression produced by these adjuncts is 
 just so much abstracted from the worship of the 
 unseen Jehovah. The ear that is entranced with the 
 melody of sweet sound,listens not to the still small voice 
 by which the Lord makes His presence known.'' 
 " You easily understand,'' says Dr. Chalmers, " how 
 a taste for music is one thing, and a real submission 
 to the influence of religion is another, how the ear 
 may be regaled by the melody of sound, and the 
 heart may utterly refuse the proper impression of the 
 
14 
 
 sense that is conveyed to ifc.'^ Cotton Mather says, 
 There is not one word of institution in the New 
 Testament for instrumental music in the worship of 
 God.'' At a Convention of a United Presbyterian 
 Church, held in Pennsylvania, Oct., 1883, for the 
 express purpose of protesting against the admission 
 of musical instruments into public worship, GreorgeC. 
 Yincent, D.D., President of Franklin College, read a 
 paper in which he says, " We charge that the use of 
 instruments is at the expense of spirituality. Musical 
 instruments came in with images, incense, and other 
 corruptions of the Romish church." The intro- 
 duction of instrumental music,'' wrote W. W. Barr in 
 a paper called " History of the Introduction of Music 
 into the Reformed Churches,'' " has been uniformly 
 preceded or accompanied by a decline of spirituality 
 in the worship." 
 
 Wesley writes in one of his hymns, 
 
 " Still let us on our guard be found, 
 And wateh against the power of sound 
 
 With sacred jealousy, 
 Lest haply sense should damp our zeal, 
 And music s charms bewitch and steal 
 Our hearts away from Thee." 
 ^'Nothing must be allowed," says Horatius Bonar^ 
 D.T)., " to come between the sheep and the Shepherd, 
 or blunt the influence of His voice. Even when the 
 things are lawful and harmless in themselves the 
 question requires always to be considered, ' How do 
 they affect our hearing of the Shepherd's voice ?' 
 
15 
 
 The crowded meeting, tlie eloquent speecli, the 
 fervent appeal, the hearty music are very enjoyable, 
 but they are not without their perils. The Shepherd's 
 voice may perchance be lost in the excitement of 
 human feeling. To go ^ out of hearing ' of that voice 
 is fatal to our following Him ; but even when we keep 
 within hearing we must be on our guard lest^ in the 
 confusion and mixture of other sounds, the one dear 
 voice should lose all its power and sweetness ; for 
 there is hut one voice that the flock needs to hear, and 
 to hear continually. Whatever then dulls that voice, 
 or divides its influence, is injury with which we dare 
 
 not trifle There was a congregation in which 
 
 music was cultivated to the utmost. The ear was 
 gratified every Sunday with singing of the most 
 perfect kind. Worldly men dropped in to hear the 
 musical ^ treat ^ prepared in the name of worship 
 and went away in raptures. But as these dropped in, 
 the godly dropped out. They could no longer hear 
 the Shepherd's voice. It was drowned in human 
 
 melody Culture, poetry, literature, song, sensation 
 
 will not supply the lack of the Holy Spirit, or make 
 up for the want of the Shepherd's voice." 
 
 What Dr. Bonar says respecting music in the 
 churches may fittingly introduce the objection felt by 
 Friends to the ordinary mode of singing hymns as 
 part of a pre-arranged service, in which it is to be 
 feared many join with the lips whose experience is a 
 contradiction to the words they sing. Defining 
 
16 
 
 worship to be the " adoring response of the heart and 
 mind to the influence of the Spirit of God/'^ they 
 "believe, in the words of Barclay, that " the singing 
 that pleases Him " must proceed from a true sense 
 of God's love in the heart, and arise from the Divine 
 influence of the Spirit, which leads souls to breathe 
 forth either a sweet harmony, or words suitable to the 
 present condition." 
 
 The dark apostacy of the Papacy and all the evils 
 to which it gave rise, consisted in imposing a human 
 authority between the soul and God. The grand 
 power of the Reformation inaugurated by Luther and 
 his predecessors, so far as it went, lay in the re-in- 
 stating Christ as the only Mediator between God and 
 man, and as the ever-living Head over His own 
 Church. " Religion, as Luther conceived it,'' writes 
 Froude, ^^did not consist in certain things done to 
 and for a man by a so-called process. It was the 
 devotion of each individual soul to the service of 
 God.'' Had these principles been carried out to their 
 legitimate extent in worship, in Church government, 
 in the individual responsibility of each soul to its God 
 alone, there would seem to have been no need for the 
 rise of Quakerism. But we know how the wave of 
 progress was arrested in its course, and even swept 
 back as by a receding tide. The aim of Fox was 
 solely to remove the superincumbent strata which had 
 
 ♦ New York Y. M. Epistle, 1877. 
 
17 
 
 accumulated since tlie Apostolic age, and to restore 
 broad, unfettered, primitive Cliristianity," or, to 
 use his own well-known words, to bring people to 
 Cbrist, and to leave them there." His purpose was to 
 vitalize professing Christendom, and we see that after 
 the lapse of centuries it is gradually becoming 
 realised, for some oi those special truths which the 
 Society of Friends, were at first not only ridiculed, 
 but even severely persecuted for holding, have now 
 come to the front and are making their way in the 
 religious world of all denominations, thus tending to 
 confirm the remark of a well-know modern writer, 
 that " Quakerism is the absolute religion behind all 
 others or rather that which is absolute and eternal in 
 all others." Accepting as their primary axiom, " We 
 are nothing, Christ is all coming together with the 
 deep realization of His assurance that He was in their 
 midst, how was it possible for those who thus believed 
 in His real presence to worship Him in any other way 
 than that of reverent silence till He should manifest 
 His will ? It is the place of a scholar thus to reve- 
 rence his Teacher, waiting for His commands, not in 
 listless inactivity, but with the outstretched desire to 
 know his duty that he may do it. As the eyes of 
 servants look unto the hands of their masters, and as 
 the eyes of a maiden unto the hands of her mistress, so 
 our eyes wait upon the Lord our God." 
 
 At the opening meeting of the Northfield Confer- 
 ence, D. L. Moody said that many frends had asked 
 
18 
 
 him what the programme of the Conference was to be. 
 In reply he had to say that he had made out several 
 programmes^ and had torn them all up. He had no 
 programme. He was waiting on God to lead them, 
 waiting on God to speak." During one of these large 
 gatherings, about twenty minutes was spent at his 
 request in silent prayer, and this time of united silent 
 devotion was described as "blessed and powerful." 
 
 Another eminent preacher says, " It would be well 
 if in our brief time of worship we could set aside a few 
 moments for absolute silence, no minister to speak, no 
 organ to utter its voice, no hymn to trouble the air... 
 the fool would misunderstand and think nothiug was 
 being done, but as the last expression of velocity is 
 rest, so the last expression of eloquence is silence, and 
 sometimes the highest liturgy is to be dumb. We 
 
 have banished the angel of silence we have 
 
 set noise in the front, and silence has been exiled 
 from the church." 
 
 At the last meeting of the recent Christian Con- 
 ference at Washington, W. E. Dodge, who repre- 
 sented the Alliance, asked for a time of silent prayer. 
 
 An almost Pentecostal silence followed ; the 
 multitude being, as is were, lifted spiritually, on a 
 wave of adoration and prayer, near to the mercy-seat." 
 
 Dr. Yaughan, in his Harrow Sundays," speaks in 
 eloquent words of the value of silence as a fitting pre- 
 paration for the highest work. " No religious duty 
 can be profitably performed without a preliminary 
 
19 
 
 and prefatory silence This is the secret of so many 
 
 barren and unfruitful ministries, that men are trying" 
 
 to dispense with silence Silence is one of Grod^s 
 
 ordinances, and speech and labour another But 
 
 how can we leave unnoticed the Divine aspect of 
 silence ; the silence of awe, the silence of meditation, 
 
 the silence of prayer, yes, the silence of praise ? : 
 
 And once more, when we pray, who has not felt that 
 oftentimes his best praj^er is silence ; that unuttered 
 yearning of which St. Paul speaks as constituting the 
 very intercession of the Spirit, the very thing which 
 rises with acceptance into the ear of the Searcher of 
 hearts ? Nay in all true prayer, even in the prayer of 
 the congregation, the deepest, innermost secret is 
 silence ; even if the lips speak, they do not really 
 pray ; it is the secret, silent heart within which really 
 carries on the worship in each particular worshipper, 
 and without this the sound of the loudest response 
 becomes at once a babbling and a nothingness. Prayer, 
 true prayer, is, so far as its essence is concerned, a 
 silent thing ; and is not praise silent also ? Yes, again 
 the Psalmist goes before us, and says, according to 
 the forcible words of the original, ' Praise is silent for 
 Thee, 0 God, in Zion for praise is but another word 
 for adoration ; that prostration of the whole soul 
 before the felt and realised presence of the Most High 
 and Holy God, which is the attitude of the heavenly 
 hosts, and to which, on earth at least, whosoever 
 approximates, must do so in the secret of his own 
 
20 
 
 inner solitude, conscious of no other presence than 
 that of Him Whose he is and Whom he serves.^' 
 
 The passage in the 65th Psalm, to which reference 
 has just been made, is translated bv some, " Thou art 
 praised in silence, 0 God, in Zion.'^ 
 
 " Maimonides tells us that when the priest among 
 the Jews burnt incense in the sanctuary, at the time of 
 offering the daily sacrifice, there reigned a deep 
 silence. At that time every noise must cease, and 
 every man composed himself to prayers, which were 
 poured forth in silence to God/^ 
 
 A few words from a former writer in the Spectator msbj 
 fitly find a place here. Some Friends, it is said, think 
 that this silence is but an accident of their worship, not 
 fit for these times — to us Barclay's ideas seem higher 
 and holier — ' The great work of all ought to be to wait 
 upon God, and, retiring 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, according to His promise. Silence is, 
 and must necessarily be, a special and principal part 
 of God's worship.' Let the Friends cleave fast to these 
 wise words. Time will not soon make old,and certainly 
 not in these babbling days, the truth that in silent wait- 
 ing the deepest communings of the soul breathe forth." 
 
 Thus, also Whittier, in the Prayer of Agassiz ; — 
 
 ** By past efforts unavailing. 
 
 Doubt and error, loss and failing, 
 Of our weakness made aware, 
 
21 
 
 On the threshold of our task, 
 
 Let us light and guidance ask, 
 
 Let us pause in silent prayer. 
 • • « • « 
 
 As in life's best hours we hear 
 By the Spirit's finer ear, 
 His low voice within us, thus 
 The All-Father heareth us, 
 And His holy ear we pain, 
 With our noisy words and vain, 
 His the primal language. His 
 The eternal silences !" 
 
 In this solemn exercise of united silent prayer all 
 
 may join. It is an excellent preparation for both 
 
 preachers and hearers, enabling the first to give God's 
 
 message as He gives it to them_, and the last to receive 
 
 it to edification. Although, in a healthy state of the 
 
 church, the gift of prophecying in its largest vScrip- 
 
 tural sense would, we believe, be abundantly poured 
 
 out on sons and on daughters, yet there have been 
 
 times when the attitude of the congregation or of the 
 
 individual has been turned towards Him, when He has 
 
 been pleased most remarkably to manifest His power 
 
 without spoken words. As an instance of this we 
 
 may mention that wonderful meeting at Maine, on the 
 
 borders of Canada, thus described by Dr. Mahan, 
 
 D.D. : — "Many thousands of Christians and others 
 
 were gathered together for a ten days' conference 
 
 and many of these were earnestly uniting in prayer to 
 
 be fi-Ued ^ith the Spirit. Then commenced a season 
 
 of entirelif silent prayer, which continued for three 
 
 hours. As the time passed on the place became to 
 
22 
 
 the spiritual consciousness^ awfully glorious. No 
 "words can describe tlie solemn, overpowering sense of 
 the presence of God. Any expression of prayer or 
 singing seemed an intrusion, and persons who com- 
 menced instinctively stopped. God was Himself 
 speaking to them in their inmost hearts. None dared 
 break the solemn silence of soul before Him. They 
 were now learning what the worship of the whole 
 being to its Creator and God is. As they saw the 
 holiness of God, they gained new views of their own 
 sinfulness in themselves, and with this they saw with 
 equal distinctness, the full provision in Christ for all 
 
 their need When (after an interval for needful 
 
 refreshment) the time for the evening service ap- 
 proached, the President lifted up his hands, and said 
 solemnly to the crowd, ' Bow down before the Lord, 
 your Maker ! ' saints and sinners knelt together. 
 Not another word was said or hymn sung, but when 
 we gathered in the immense tent, then we knew what 
 God had done for his people in waiting before Him. 
 The President said that God had given him all he had 
 asked for, and many testified that the words of the 
 prayer for the Ephesians had been answered in their 
 own souls. That evening the conversion of over one 
 hundred persons took place as the result of that won- 
 derful silent meeting before the Lord." 
 
 Let no one suppose that in citing the foregoing extracts 
 the writer of this paper wishes to prove that silence is the 
 only acceptable mode of worship. Far from it. They 
 
23 
 
 are rather quoted to show that Christians of other 
 denominations recognise its power in its results. 
 There is nothing in this that militates against the ex- 
 hortation of the Apostle, " Covet earnestly the best 
 gifts, but rather that ye may prophecy." He that 
 prophesieth edifieth the Church." Let each be in 
 God's order and the blessing will be sure. 
 
 It is not a little remakable that Robert Barclay, 
 the acute logician, and Stephen Grellet, the Paul-like 
 missionary, were both brought under the power of the 
 Lord, not by the preaching of man or force of argu- 
 ment, but by His secret manifestations to their souls 
 during silent worship. ^' When," says Barclay, 1 
 came into the silent assemblies of God's people, I felt 
 a secret power among them which touched my heart. 
 And as I gave way unto it I found the evil weakening 
 in me and the good raised up. And so I became thus 
 knit and united unto them, hungering more and more 
 
 after the increase of this power and life This is 
 
 that cement whereby we are joined, as to the Lord, so 
 to one another. Yet it is not in silence, as silence, that 
 our worship consisteth, but in a holy depeiidence of our 
 mind upon God, from which dependence silence neces- 
 sarily follows in the first place until words can be 
 brought forth which are from God's Spirit. And God is 
 not wanting to move in His children to bring forth words 
 of exhortation or prayer when it is needful, so that of 
 our many gatherings and meetings, there is scarce 
 any in which God raised not up some or other to 
 
24 
 
 minister to his brethen. For when many are mefc 
 together in this one Life and Name, it doth most natur- 
 ally and frequently excite them to pray and to praise 
 God^ and stir up one another by mutual exhortation 
 and instructions." 
 
 Much is it to be desired that meetings such as these 
 might increase amongst us. There are some whose 
 sole idea of public worship consists in going to church, 
 chapel or meeting, whose only spiritual exercise, to 
 use Henry Drummond's expressive words, is that of 
 ^' imbibition." It is to be feared that, even with the 
 Society of Friends, who have been largely preserved 
 from becoming, as he says, " parasites of the pew," 
 there has been too much of a passive assumption that 
 the congregation consisted of a few fixed preachers 
 and a company of equally fixed hearers. To many of 
 these hearers the thought may have never occurred 
 of any possibility of anything else as regards them- 
 selves. They have, as a matter of course, taken their 
 place amongst the listeners without being fully awake 
 to the important fact that, in united worship, an exer- 
 cise ought to be maintained on behalf of others. This 
 exercise, even though secret, would be powerful in its 
 effect, yet if earnest heart-aspirations, and fervent 
 soul-yearning for the deepest welfare of those who 
 met with us abounded, would they not, more often 
 than is the case, find an outcome in a few words of 
 prayer or praise, or, at times, of loving exhortation, 
 from some of those amongst us who might not be specifi- 
 
25 
 
 cally called to the work of the ministry ? We have 
 need especially to be on our guard lest we deceive 
 ourselves with the idea that silence is necessarily 
 worship, or lest we allow our religion to be merely a 
 selfish desire of getting good to own own souls. 
 
 The hand of the diligent maketh rich/' in spiritual 
 things as in temporal. A listless state of mind tends 
 to spread coldness over the body at large, whilst one 
 who is fervently engaged in seeking to draw down 
 blessings from above contributes to the life of the 
 congregation. So in nature; the bee gathers not 
 honey for herself alone, but for the community of 
 which she forms a part. 
 
 We may suitably wind up these thoughts on Worship 
 by the following lines from the pen of a living 
 writer : — 
 
 '^TJiere am I in the midst .'^ 
 
 If, as we met in the accustomed place, 
 
 No wonder written upon any face, 
 
 He should come in and in our midst sit down, 
 
 The Son of Man, without or cross or crown, 
 
 But with His human hands that did enfold 
 
 The little children tenderly of old — 
 
 With human hps that spake in earthly speech — 
 
 How should we listen for what they might teach ? 
 
 Should we not wait upon the Lord that day, 
 
 And feel to hear was only to obey ? 
 
 And when our lingering steps He bade depart, 
 
 Would not one impulse thrill through every heart ? 
 
26 
 
 Would not each trembling voice one thought express 
 '* We will not let Thee go, except Thou bless ?" 
 And then — His hands uplifted as of yore— 
 In earthly fashion," He would bless once more 
 And vanish from our sight. And on each face 
 Astonishment should sit a little space, 
 Till some gave utterance to the bitter cry, 
 ' ' Why did we not behold more steadfastly, 
 Listen more closely when the Lord was nigh ?" 
 While some who'd known Him long, whose faces told 
 That they had been with Jesus, would grow bold 
 To tell whereof they knew — and this their strain — 
 ' ' Let us be patient — He will come again ; 
 Has He not been with us at dawn of day, 
 As friend with friend, walked with us by the way, 
 And dearer still, drawn near as eve grew dim, 
 That He might sup with us and we with Him ?" 
 
 And all should go. To such as thou and I 
 A light like noontide blaze henceforth to lie 
 On all things earthly ; memories to be 
 An unseen Presence with us constantly. 
 Even as the Bride, whom the strong seas divide 
 Por a brief season from the Bridegroom's side, 
 Yet Him in spirit near for ever feels. 
 And in each word and deed to Him appeals, 
 Keeping her bridal raiment clean and white, 
 Than royal robes more precious in her sight, 
 From rosy daybreak until twilight dim, 
 Holding all service joy if done for Him, 
 Waiting to join Him in a happier home. 
 But glad and patient till He bids her come, 
 Not seeking for herself or that or this. 
 Her very life both lost and found in His. 
 
27 
 
 Yet, when we meet in the accustomed place, 
 
 He fails not to be there in matchless grace ; 
 
 If we brought '* empty hands " outstretched to Him 
 
 With pleading glance, He would His pledge redeem. 
 
 And fill them to o'erflowing ; but we stand 
 
 With downcast eye, clasping in either hand 
 
 Earth's burdens and its treasures — hence in vain 
 
 Bends over us that face of love and pain 
 
 We left no eye to see. The feast is spread 
 
 And He, Who is Himself the living Bread 
 
 Would break to all, and with a touch divine, 
 
 Turn earthly water into heavenly wine. 
 
 All things are ready, saved the laggard guest, 
 
 So tenderly, but vainly called and pressed. 
 
 All things are ready — at the altar's side. 
 
 With deathless love the Bridegroom waits the Bride. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Gospel Ministet. 
 
 Collateral testimonies from W. Arthur, A. M., Finney, Bishop 
 Pearce, Bishop of Wells, &c. 
 
 " Our sufficiency is of God, Who hath made us able 
 ministers of the New Testament ; not of the letter, hut 
 of the Spirit, for the letter hilleth, hut the Spirit 
 giveth Life." 
 
 —2 Cor. iii. 6. 
 
 1. We turn next to the consideration of Spiritual 
 Gifts. We believe that the bestowal of these is as 
 mucb tbe prerogative of Christ now as in the days 
 when it was said, He gave some to be Apostles, and 
 some Evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for 
 the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of minis- 
 tering, unto the building up of the body of Christ." 
 (Eph. iv. 11-16, Revised Version. ) It is our part not 
 to appoint, but to recognise his choice. 
 
 In that remarkable book, " The Tongue of Fire," 
 by William Arthur, A.M., are some striking remarks 
 in connection with our present subject. " Whether 
 we take," he says, " the Prophets under the Old Dis- 
 pensation, or the Lord's messengers under the New, 
 
29 
 
 we find that the distinctive characteristics of a true 
 Minister of God lay in a call and a qualification. The 
 qualification involved a gift, a power, and a training. 
 He who had a call from God, a gift from God, and a 
 power from God, and he only, was ever Prophet, 
 Evangelist or Pastor and Teacher, in any scriptural 
 sense. The training varied with the age, dispensation, 
 and circumstances; but no training ever did, or ever 
 can, make him a Minister who has no call, no gifts, 
 and no power sent upon his soul by the anointing of 
 
 the eternal Spirit'^ " ^ The love of Christ con- 
 
 straineth us,' is the language in which the Apostle 
 expresses that which is essential in the internal work- 
 ing of a call from God to spend and to be spent for 
 the salvation of men ; and he who, thus constrained 
 by the love of Christ, finds himself possessed of a gift 
 to speak to edification, or exhortation, or comfort, has, 
 in that motion and in that faculty, strong evidence 
 that the Lord is calling him into His vineyard. 
 What he feels is not a mere desire to enter the 
 ministry, as a good and useful office, or to spend life 
 in an honourable and happy vocation ; but it is a con- 
 straining movement of the love of Christ, as if issuing 
 from His heart into the heart of His servant, and 
 working there a strong impulse to cry out and labour 
 for the recovery of Adam's lost children to the favour 
 
 of their God, and the rest of Heaven He whom 
 
 God sends to any work, He qualifies for that work 
 
 Only one's own soul can tell what has passed between 
 
30 
 
 the soul and its Saviour. No stranger intermeddleth 
 with the question whether the Spirit has, or has not, 
 in holy promptings, moved one to consecrate his life 
 to the sole work of edifying and multiplying the flock 
 
 of Christ The Church, nevertheless, has her 
 
 responsibility ; and before she seals the credentials of 
 any, she is bound to take note whether the Lord Him- 
 self has sealed them by the gifts of His Holy Spirit. 
 Does his whole life testify that he has felt the re- 
 pentance to which he is to call sinners, exercised the 
 faith to which he is to encourage penitents, and 
 experienced, in some degree, that sanctification to 
 
 which he is to lead on believers ? No circumstance 
 
 of time, age, nation, or ought else, can authorise any 
 Church to dispense with the essential qualification 
 that he who is to be a Minister of God shall first be a 
 
 child of God ^Ye shall be endued,' said our Lord, 
 
 ' with power from on high* — robed with power. This 
 is the true robing and vestmenc of the Minister of 
 God — an invisible garment of power, which sits not 
 upon his shoulders, but upon his spirit, shading him 
 over with a moral dignity, as if he held office from the 
 King of Kings, and conveying to every conscience 
 before him the instinctive perception that he comes 
 commissioned to deal with it on the things that affect 
 its purity, and its relations with Him who planted it 
 in man.'' 
 
 The essential qualification for preaching the Gospel 
 has never, we believe, been altered from the day when 
 
our Lord called the fishermen of Galilee to leave their 
 nets, with the simple command, " Follow me, and I 
 will make you fishers of men." The necessity of 
 merely human study and learning is never indicated 
 in the New Testament, although in the Epistles of 
 Paul to Timothy he repeatedly exhorts him to dili- 
 gence in the right use and cultivation of the gift, with 
 the stewardship of which he was entrusted. Stir 
 up the gift of God that is in thee." Study to show 
 thyself a workman approved unto God/' "Exercise 
 thyself unto Godliness.'* " Be diligent in these things, 
 give thyself wholly to them, that thy progress may 
 be manifest unto all." " Take heed to thyself and to 
 thy teaching. Continue in these things. Till I come 
 give heed to reading, to exhortation, to teaching.*' 
 The parable of the talents teaches us that, although 
 every ability in work for God comes solely from Him- 
 self, yet that we shall be held accountable for the 
 increase dependent upon exercise. We cannot create 
 the ear of corn which we sow, or command the rain or 
 fruitful seasons, yet if we did not sow there would be 
 no harvest. Negligence in the cultivation of spiritual 
 gifts, in communion with God, or in the prayerful 
 study of the Bible, is sure to be accompanied by loss 
 of power. 
 
 The experience of Prof. Finney, President of 
 Oberlin College, U.S.A., who was largely honoured in 
 the conversion of sinners, is interesting, as evincing 
 his belief in immediate inspiration as an essential 
 
32 
 
 qualification for the ministry, whilst, at the same time, 
 he was a diligent student of the Scriptures, and, 
 above all things, fervent in prayer. " I am prepared 
 to say,'^ he writes, " that I think I have studied all 
 the more from not having written my sermons. For 
 12 years of my earliest ministry, I was most commonly 
 obliged to preach without any preparation whatever 
 except what I got in prayer. Oftentimes I went into 
 the pulpit without knowing upon what text I should 
 speak or a word that I should say. I depended on 
 the occasion and the Holy Spirit to suggest the text 
 and to open up the whole subject to my mind. And 
 certainly in no part of my ministry have I preached 
 with greater success and power. If I did not preach 
 from inspiration I don't know how I did preach. It 
 was a common experience with me, and has been 
 through all my ministerial life, that the subject would 
 open up to my mind in a manner that was surprising 
 to myself. It seemed that I could see with intuitive 
 clearness just what I ought to say. And whole 
 platoons of thoughts, words and illustrations came to 
 me as fast as I could utter them. I almost always 
 get my subjects on my knees in prayer, and it has 
 been a common experience with me, upon receiving a 
 subject from the Holy Spirit, to have it make so 
 strong an impression on my mind as to make me 
 tremble. When subjects are thus given me that 
 seem to go through me, body and soul, I find they 
 always tell with great power upon the people. Some 
 
33 
 
 ■of the most telling sermons I have ever preached in 
 Oberlin I have thus received after the bell has rung 
 for church, and I was obliged to go and pour them off 
 from my full heart. I tell this, not boastfully, but 
 because it is a fact, and to give the praise to God and 
 not to any talents of my own. Let no man think that 
 those sermons which have been called so powerful 
 were productions of my own brain or of my own 
 heart, unassisted by the Holy Ghost. They were not 
 mine, but from the Holy Ghost in me. And let no 
 man say that this is claiming a higher inspiration than 
 is promised to ministers, or than ministers have a 
 right to expect. For I believe that all ministers 
 called by Christ to preach the Gospel, ought to be, 
 and may be in such a sense inspired as to preach the 
 Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. 
 What else did Christ mean when He said, ' Go and 
 disciple all nations, and lo, I am with you alway, even 
 unto the end of the world What else did He mean 
 when He said, speaking of the Holy Spirit, ' He shall 
 take of Mine and shall show it unto you V * He shall 
 bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I 
 have said unto you.' What did He mean when He 
 said, ' If a man believe in Me, out of him shall flow 
 rivers of living water ? This spake He of the Spirit, 
 which they who believe on Him should receive.' All 
 ministers may be, and ought to be, so filled with the 
 Holy Spirit that all who hear them shall be impressed 
 with the conviction that God is in them of a truth." 
 
34 
 
 A striking anecdote is recorded of Wesley, showing* 
 how he was first led to the practice of extempore 
 preaching. We quote it verbatim : On the last 
 Sunday in 1788_, Wesley preached to a large congre- 
 gation in London. ' Sir/ said he to an attendant, ' it 
 is above fifty years since T first preached in this chapel. 
 I remember it from a particular circumstance. I had 
 come without a sermon, and going up the pulpit stairs 
 I hesitated, and returned into the vestry under much 
 mental confusion and agitation. A woman who stood 
 by noticed my concern, and said, " Pray, sir, what is 
 the matter ?" I replied, ^'I have not brought a sermon 
 with me Putting her hand on my shoulder, she 
 said, ^^Is that all. Cannot you trust God for a 
 sermon The question had such an effect upon me 
 that I ascended the pulpit, preached extempore with 
 great freedom to myself and acceptance to the people, 
 and have never since taken a written sermon into the 
 pulpit.' 
 
 " The model of ministry,^' writes Kendal Harris, 
 is the Lord Jesus Christ. He began with the words, 
 ' The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord 
 hath anointed Me to preach.' Have we more right to 
 preach unbaptised of the Spirit than the Master had ? 
 Ought we not rather to remember with holy impor- 
 tunity before the Lord that none, in those bright days, 
 went forth without receiving power, or being breathed 
 upon with resurrection breath, or visited with the 
 Holy Spirit and tongues of flame 
 
35 
 
 Perhaps in modern times there lias been no one 
 who, in what is called divine unction in the ministry 
 and Christ-like resemblance to his Master, has ex- 
 ceeded our late venerated friend, William Forster. 
 " There was about the whole man/' says Benjamin 
 Seebohm, that peculiar expression which habitual 
 communion with God imparts to the human coun- 
 tenance. You saw — -you could not but see — that he was 
 a man dedicated, set apart for the service of God. In 
 the following words he seems to have unconsciously 
 described the secret of his own power over his hearers. 
 ' We do not want a superficial ministry ; we do not 
 want a flowery or an eloquent ministry. We want a 
 sound, a living, and a baptising ministry — that will 
 break the hard heart and heal the wounded one ; a 
 ministry that will lead the soul to Christ, the living 
 fountain, and leave it there.' 
 
 It is clear that in the early Church gatherings, 
 freedom was allowed to those who met together for 
 worship, to exercise their gifts in an orderly manner 
 for the good of all. (1. Cor. xiv. 24, 29-33). The 
 essence of the Christian Community rested on 
 this : that no individual should be the chosen pre- 
 eminent organ of the Holy Spirit for the guidance of 
 the whole." The simple organization which consists 
 in the recognition of Christ as the Head, and the 
 members of the body as in subjection to His guidance, 
 is eminently adapted for the formation of fresh 
 churches in foreign lands and amongst the heathen. 
 
36 
 
 where all tliat is needed is tliat the converts should 
 meet together in the name and power of the Lord 
 Jesus, in dependence on His own assurance, I am 
 with you alway/' Let us take two examples : — ^^At a 
 college at Sapparo, Japan, was an American professor. 
 After residing there for some time, in addition to his 
 other duties, he was asked by the minister of educa- 
 tion to teach the students American ethics. He 
 replied, the only ethics he had confidence in were the 
 ethics of Christianity, aod if he should teach ethics he 
 must begin by teaching the Bible and the Gospel of 
 Christ. The minister demurred, but finally authorised 
 him to teach ethics, saying that he would not inquire 
 how he taught the subject. The teaching of the New 
 Testament resulted in the conversion of a number of 
 students who had embraced the Christian faith when 
 the professor was called away. Thus left to them- 
 selves they continued to meet to wait on the Lord, to 
 read together the Gospel and to exhort one another. 
 They brought in their mothers, sisters and friends, 
 and a regular meeting was established, in which the 
 exercises were shared by those present. They urged 
 the claims of Christ on the new students, and the 
 good work has continued ever since.'' 
 
 The other instance was not less remarkable as an 
 illustration of the same truth. " During the Mexican 
 war, the army of General Scott left behind them, in a 
 village near the City of Mexico, a Bible in Spanish. 
 This was laid away in the dwelling of one of the in- 
 
37 
 
 habitants. Years afterwards, a certain man who 
 lived in the same village, became discontented witb 
 the rough manners and scandalous life of the parish 
 priest, and sought to know if there was no other way 
 of comfort and approach to G-od. The man, in whose 
 house the Bible was, said : ' I have a book that may 
 tell you something, but I know nothing about it/ 
 The Bible was covered with dust and was brought 
 out. The villager began to read it to himself, and 
 then to his friends. ' Why,^ he said, ' this book 
 says the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin, 
 and there is no need to go to the priest.' As he 
 continued these meetings for reading and prayer, a 
 little company of believers was formed, and others 
 gathered around him. When they met, the man who 
 first found his Bible and his Saviour said, I was 
 ignorant, I did not know what to say ; but I lifted 
 my heart to God, and He gave me words to say.' 
 This meeting was continued under great opposition 
 and persecution, but finally resulted in the formation 
 of a Christian assembly, and in the building of a 
 simple place of worship.'' 
 
 2. As the power of the Holy Spirit is needed to 
 guide in the exercise of the ministry, so is it also 
 needed to restrain and constrain in the choice of the 
 place where it is to be used. Nowhere does this 
 feature come out more prominently than in the Acts 
 of the Apostles, which has been called the Epistle of 
 the Holy Ghost. We read in the 13th chapter, that 
 
38 
 
 as the early churcli '^ministered to the Lord and 
 fasted^ the Holy Ghost said, ' Separate me Barnabas 
 and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called 
 
 them/ So they, being sent forth by the Holy 
 
 Ghost, when down to Seleucia/' On another occasion 
 we read (Acts xvi. 6) that they were " forbidden of 
 the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia." And 
 again, that they " essayed to go into Bithynia, but the 
 Spirit suffered them not." On the other hand, when 
 the man from Macedonia, beseeching help, appeared to 
 Paul in a night vision, the historian adds, " Straight- 
 way we sought to go forth into Macedonia, concluding 
 that God had called us for to preach the Gospel unto 
 them." The same guidance we look for now, and 
 believe that as we humbly wait for it, God will and 
 does graciously give it us. 
 
 As an illustration of this may be mentioned the 
 experience of Stephen Grellet, during one of his 
 missionary journeys, when intending to go by sea 
 from Leghorn to Rome. He says, " As I was going 
 to engage my passage for that port, my mind was 
 introduced into unutterable distress — gross darkness 
 seemed to be before me, whilst a bright stream of 
 light was behind ; I stood still for awhile, and found 
 I could not go forward. I returned to my lodgings, 
 and in my chamber poured forth my soul unto the 
 
 Lord, entreating Him to direct me aright He gave 
 
 me to see and strongly to feel that to Rome I should 
 go, but that the time for it had not yet come, and the 
 
39 
 
 language of the Spirit was, to proceed with all speed 
 for Geneva and Switzerland. My soul was greatly 
 humbled and tendered before the Lord, who 
 thus condescended to instruct His poor servant, and 
 to direct him in the way He would have him go. I 
 remembered with awful reverence and gratitude the 
 promise made me before I left America. ^ I will 
 teach thee and instruct thee in the way in which thou 
 goest. I will guide thee with Mine eye.' " 
 
 The result showed the reality of the guidance, for 
 religious engagements of great importance opened for 
 him at and around Geneva. The clergy there at that 
 time, as Grellet's biographer tells us, were, with 
 scarcely an exception, Socinian, and there is ground 
 to believe that his labours among them were per- 
 manently blessed." 
 
 3. Although we consider the qualification for the 
 work of the ministry to be from God, independently 
 of human scholarship (the first preachers of the 
 Gospel, chosen by Christ Himself, being unlearned 
 and ignorant men), yet, in the selection of one like 
 Paul of Tarsus, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, 
 to be the apostle of the Gentiles, who gloried in their 
 wisdom, we notice the manifoldness of adaptation 
 made use of in the spread of the Eedeemer's kingdom. 
 
 So, in later times, whilst the scholastic training of 
 ' X/uther prepared him to write his theses, and plead his 
 cause ih Latin before the great and learned of that day, 
 and the keen logic of a Barclay produced that master- 
 
40 
 
 piece of theology, the Apologj, yet the marvellous 
 success of Moody, with his meagre education, and in 
 their varying degrees, of others still less favoured in 
 this respect, precludes us from placing barriers which 
 the Lord has not placed, or from excluding any to 
 whom He hath evidently said, " Go preach the 
 Gospel/' We acknowledge that it still often pleases 
 Him to choose " the weak things of the world to con- 
 found the wise that no flesh shall glory in His 
 
 presence/' 
 
 4. In conformity with these general views is the 
 belief of the Society, hinted at before, that to Women 
 also is committed a share in proclaiming the Gospel 
 of Christ. It was so distinctly foretold as one of the 
 characteristics of the New Dispensation that the 
 daughters as well as the sons should prophecy, that 
 had it not been for the supposed prohibition of Paul, 
 we should think that the ministry of women could 
 hardly have failed to be recognised by the churches 
 ^^enerally. It seems an unfair wresting of the words 
 of the great Apostle, after his repeated mention of 
 honourable women, his fellow-labourers, to maintam 
 that he intended to forbid them from exercising a 
 gift in the ministry of the Gospel of Christ. If he 
 had meant to do this, what are we to understand by 
 the directions concerning the attire of woman when 
 so engaged? (1. Cor. xi. 5.) There appears to be no 
 real difficulty in reconciling the two passages when 
 the context is taken into consideration, and it is 
 
41 
 
 interesting to find this view of the Society of Friends 
 corroborated by that of eminent writers of other religious 
 denominations, such as Bishop Pearce, Benson, Grrotius, 
 Adam Clark, etc. Bishop Pearce says, " When St. 
 Paul imposes silence on women in the church, he 
 means silence, not in opposition to any gift of the 
 Spirit which they had, but to the desire which those 
 who had not that Spirit might have of instructing 
 others, or of being themselves instructed in Christian 
 knowledge." 
 
 The Apostolic rule," says Benson, " was that 
 when the women were under immediate inspiration, 
 they might pray or preach in the church. But when 
 they were under no such inspiration they were not to 
 speak, i.e., neither to pray nor read, teach nor ask 
 questions there.'' It is clear," says Adam Clark, 
 " that the Apostle refers to asking questions, and what 
 we call dictating in the assemblies It was the dis- 
 orderly and disobedient that the Apostle had in view, 
 and not any of those on whom God had poured out of 
 His Spirit.'' If St. Paul," writes the Dean of Wells, 
 " gave a special direction as to the outward dress of 
 women who prayed and prophesied, did it not imply 
 that they might under those circumstances prophesy 
 — that is, speak words of comfort and counsel, as the 
 
 Spirit gave them utterance ? For my part, I 
 
 find it hard to imagine that Priscilla, who expounded 
 the way of God more perfectly even to Apollos, as 
 Elizabeth Fry or Hannah More may have done to a 
 
42 
 
 Georgian bishop — was altogether a mute person when 
 the church in her house was gathered together that 
 •one might edify another 
 
 In judging of the meaning of particular precepts, 
 it is always important to bear in mind the circum- 
 stances under which they were spoken. 
 
 Lightfoot tells us that it was customary in the 
 Jewish synagogues for the hearers to question the 
 ministers on such points in their doctrine as might 
 require further explanation, and it appears probable 
 that a similar practice had been introduced into the 
 church at Corinth, and that the women of that church 
 were remarkably prone to it. 
 
 The call to women to preach was not recognised 
 first by the Society of Friends ; it appears to have 
 •commenced in some of the Independent churches in 
 England in 1641, and still earlier in America among 
 the Baptists ; during the times of declension which 
 followed, it dropped into disuse, and was virtually for- 
 bidden in almost all the Christian sects except Friends; 
 in the present day it is becoming again largely ad- 
 mitted by various denominations of Christians, though 
 still with some restrictions as to the place in which it 
 is exercised ; and we may add, it has been eminently 
 blessed of the Lord. 
 
 Had the Vicar of Moorwinstowe Church, in Corn- 
 wall, held the same liberal views as the Dean of Wells, 
 he would, peradventure, notwithstanding the unpre- 
 cedented nature of the occurrence, have received the 
 
43 
 
 message given by Joanna Brooks on that memorable 
 Sabbath morning to the assembled congregation in 
 the church, as it was indeed, in truth, a message from 
 God, and not have suffered her husband, the church- 
 warden, to lead her away, in the fear that she had 
 lost her reason. A calm, unexcitable, godly woman, 
 weighted with the sense that the Lord had com- 
 manded her to speak to the people, she folded her 
 hands, while her voice rang out quietly and very 
 solemnly, " Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and 
 I will declare what He hath done for my soul/' 
 Slumbering souls were awakened by her simple, yet 
 earnest confession of what Christ had been to her, and 
 many who had listened from time to time unmoved, to 
 the usual Sunday sermons, with their measured plati- 
 tudes, were stirred by her living experience, and 
 owned her as indeed a handmaid of the Lord.'' 
 Why should it be incredible to any that the Lord 
 should send a message by the mouth of a woman, 
 seeing that the woman of Samaria and Mary Magda- 
 lene were both his chosen messengers, and that He 
 can work with the small as well as with the great ? 
 
 Only let an instrument be perfectly pliable in His 
 hands, and He can use it.'' But if any of our sisters, 
 whom the Lord would send, are shrinking back, and 
 are saying, "I pray Thee, have me excused," let them 
 remember that the call to be employed by Him is one 
 of privilege. 
 
 The woman of Samaria left her water-pot at the 
 
44 
 
 well in lier joy at having found tlie Christ/' and in 
 her desire to spread the good news ; and Mary Mag- 
 dalene did run to bring His disciples word that He 
 had risen from the dead. 
 
 He who chooses the messenger will give strength 
 to deliver the message ; but what if, by refusal, we 
 lose the sower's joy ? 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Christ's Reward. 
 
 Collateral testimonies from Geikie, Dr. Maclaren, &c. 
 
 Peter said unto Him, Behold, we have forsaken all 
 and have followed Thee : what shall ive have therefore ? 
 
 Jesus said Every one that hath forsaken houses, or 
 
 brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or 
 children, or lands, for My Name^s sake, shall receive an 
 hundredjold, and shall inherit everlasting life,'^ 
 
 —Matt. xix. 27-29. 
 
 We come next to consider the ground on whicli tlie 
 Society of Friends rests its testimony against pecu- 
 niary emolument for preaching the Gospel. Qualifi- 
 cations which we acknowlege to be divinely bestowed 
 cannot stand on the same platform as an ordinary 
 trade. "No gift of God's grace," says TertuUian, 
 writing in the fourth century, " is to be bought or sold 
 with money.'' W e hold that what has been freely 
 received should be freely given, and that, therefore, to 
 quote from Benjamin Seebohm, " the ministry of the 
 Gospel must be essentially gratuitous and free, without 
 money and without price, without hire and without 
 
46 
 
 pay." " Two things there are/' says Milton, " whicli 
 have ever wrought much mischief to the church of God 
 and to the cause of truth, force on one side restraining, 
 and hire on the other, corrupting the teachers." Even 
 in the ancient Jewish synagogue the office of teacher 
 was combined with a manual trade. "No Rabbi, 
 teacher, or preacher could take money for any official 
 duty. It was required that every Rabbi should learn 
 a trade by which to support himself. ' He who does 
 not teach his son a trade/ says Rabbi Jehuda, ' is 
 much the same as if he taught him to be a thief.' One 
 Rabbi was a needle maker, another a smith, another 
 a shoemaker, and another, like St. Paul, who was 
 also a Rabbi, a tent cover weaver." — Geikie's ''Life of 
 Christ.'' 
 
 Dean Stanley, alluding to the practice which 
 obtained in the early Jewish synagogue, to which 
 probably the meetings of the early Christians bore 
 some resemblance, says, " No office of teaching corres- 
 ponding to that of the Jewish priesthood or Christian 
 clergy existed in the body. The instruction was given 
 by any scholar of any pretensions who presented him- 
 self for the occasion. (See Luke iv. 16. ; also Acts 
 xiii. 15). The practice of combining the office of 
 teachers with some manual trade was a constant safe- 
 guard against their sinking into a merely sacerdotal, 
 or merely literary class." The Dean further alludes 
 to the coincidence between " the indignant refusal of 
 St. Paul, in the cities of Athens and Corinth, to 
 
47 
 
 receive remuneration for his labours, and the similar 
 protest of Socrates, bj precept and example, against 
 tbe injurious effect produced on teachers by direct 
 dependence on the voluntary or involuntary payment 
 of the bearers." Ought a standard less high than 
 that of an enlightened heathen or that of the Jewish 
 Rabbis to prevail in Christian churches ? Ought the 
 " loaves and fishes/^ the gold and silver, to be held 
 out as an inducement for preaching the unsearchable 
 riches of Christ, Who, for our sakes, became poor ? 
 Who could be more abundant in labour than the 
 Apostle Paul ? For three years, at Ephesus, teaching 
 publicly from house to house, and warning every man^ 
 night and day, with tears, yet telling his converts, in 
 touching words, " I coveted no man's silver, or gold, 
 or apparel; yea, ye yourselves know that these hands 
 ministered unto my necessities and to them that were 
 with me. In all things I gave you an example, how 
 that, so labouring, ye ought to help the weak, and to 
 remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He Him- 
 self said, ' It is more blessed to give than to receive.' 
 Again, in writing to the Thessalonians, he says> 
 "Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought, but 
 wrought with labour and travail night and day, that 
 we might not be chargeable unto any of you, not 
 because we have not power, but to make ourselves, 
 ensamples unto you to follow us." (2 Thess. iii. 8-9). 
 Yet this same Apostle frankly tells us in another place, 
 that the Lord hath ordained that they who proclaim 
 
48 
 
 the Gospel should live of the Gospel," and he adduces 
 loj way of illustration, the Mosaic law, " Thou shalt 
 not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the 
 corn/' What is the natural inference ? Is it not the 
 same as that conveyed in the words of our Lord when 
 He sent out His disciples two by two as His ambas- 
 sadors ? " And in that same house remain, eating and 
 drinking such things as they give, for the labourer is 
 worthy of his hire," or of his " meat," as it is rendered 
 elsewhere. Surely no idea is conveyed in either of 
 these passages of holding out a pecuniary reward as 
 an inducement for preaching the Gospel, while at the 
 same time it is evident that to administer to the daily 
 needs of those who are called to leave houses and 
 lands for Christ's sake is a privilege to be shared by 
 those to whom they are sent. He that receiveth a 
 righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall 
 receive a righteous man's reward." "Whosoever 
 shall give you a cup of water to drink in My name, 
 because ye belong to Christ, verily, I say unto you, 
 he shall not lose his reward." 
 
 Dr. Maclaren, the well-known minister of a very • 
 large Congregational Chapel at Manchester, alluding 
 in one of his sermons to the words of our Lord, " The 
 labourer is werthy of his hire," appropriately asks, 
 
 Of how much hire ? " " Why," he continues, " of 
 that amount exactly which is needful for his support 
 while labouring, and of nothing further. Christ was 
 bidding His disciples go forth without purse, or scrip. 
 
49 
 
 or slioes, in a state of such utter poverty that they 
 were forced to live on the hospitality of their converts, 
 and this, the bare food and lodging offered them, is 
 what He permits them to accept as their legitimate 
 reward/' This is the course virtually adopted now 
 by the Society of Friends, who, when their ministers 
 are, whether for a longer or shorter period, so closely oc- 
 cupied in theirLord's work that they have no opportunity 
 to provide for themselves, freely pay the cost of their 
 journeys and other expenses out of the common stock, 
 whilst at the same time, the hospitality of those who 
 are able to afford it by receiving them into their houses, 
 is often made a blessing both to giver and receiver. 
 
 The Apostle Paul, whilst he does not urge his 
 example as obligatory upon others, is so jealous of 
 the reputation of the Gospel that he abstains from 
 using an even allowable liberty, saying " What is my 
 reward ? That when I preach the Gospel, I may 
 make the Gospel without charge, so as not to use to 
 the full my right in the Gospel." (R. V.) In the 
 exposition of the views of Friends, by New York 
 Yearly Meeting, they say, We understand PauFs 
 example to be the true commentary by which may be 
 understood his teachings, as to how preachers might, 
 but had much better not, be dependent for carnal 
 things on ttieir fellow-men. Unquestionably the 
 conviction, practice and testimony of Friends, for 
 more than 200 years, have been altogether opposed to 
 any form of any regularly salaried ministry." 
 
50 
 
 Whilst we cannot but perceive on tlie one hand the 
 evils attending a ministry provided for hj the state, 
 and, on the other, the scarcely less perilous course of 
 exposing ministers to the temptation of pleasing the 
 audience, upon whom they are dependent for volun- 
 tary support, we see that Friends stand upon vantage 
 ground in this respect which it would be to their loss 
 to forego. 
 
 Where it is possible to combine religious and secular 
 employments, there are many advantages in doing so. 
 The balance between the physical and spiritual part 
 of our nature is better sustained ; there is an added 
 capacity to sympathize experimentally with those who 
 have to labour for their daily bread, either by hand 
 or brain, and no door is open for any suspicion, how- 
 ever unjust, that it is chosen as a way of making a 
 living. Dr. Cyrus Ham'h^lin, in his work " Among 
 the Turks,'' writes, "Ability to engage in some 
 secular pursuit, the conscious power to live by one's 
 own exertions, is a necessary safeguard to the purity 
 of the native ministry. He who enters the ministry 
 because there is nothing else for him to do will hardly 
 be a very spiritual-minded worker.'' 
 
 A Chinese Evangelist being urged to accept a salary, 
 ga,ve the following cogent reasons for refusing : — 
 
 " 1. I have got money enough to keep my family in 
 comfort if we are careful. 
 
 " 2. When I go down to preach in the native town, 
 I sometimes hear such remarks as these, ' How much 
 
51 
 
 does he get from the foreigner ? And I see they 
 listen with respect when I tell them that I preach 
 this doctrine because I believe it, and the foreigner 
 does not give me a penny. 
 
 " 3. I see in my Book that Paul preached, ' working 
 with his own hands/ and if the pastor has no objec- 
 tions, I wish to do likewise/' — {London Word and 
 Worh. 
 
 There will, however, we must freely admit, be cases 
 in which it is the duty of the Church to see that the 
 right call to the ministry and all that it involves is 
 not hindered by the lack of things needful to the 
 body. While the aim is simple and pure, right guid- 
 ance will not be denied, for the promise remains sure, 
 " No good thing will He withhold from them that 
 walk uprightly." 
 
 We must not close this part of our subject without 
 alluding to the promised reward of a true minister of 
 Christ. " He that reapeth,'^ said our blessed Lord, 
 receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, 
 that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may 
 rejoice together." 
 
 What reward can be greater than this ? 
 
CHAPTER IT. 
 
 What the Society of Friends Believe Respecting 
 THE Ordinances. 
 
 Collateral testimonies from Neander, Dr. Gumming, Dean 
 Stanley, &c. 
 
 " Comparing spiritual things with spiritual.*' 
 He that is spiritual judgeth all things." 
 
 —1. Cor. ii. 13, 15. 
 
 Part I. 
 
 There is a sentence in tlie Preface to tlie Common 
 Prayer Book whicli, thougli we are surprised to find^ 
 it there, we may take as our key-note. "Christ's 
 gospel is not a ceremonial law (as much of Moses' law 
 was), but it is a religion to serve God, not in bondage 
 of figure or shadow, but in the freedom of the Spirit." 
 
 Perhaps no part of the principles held by the 
 Society of Friends has been so strongly contested by- 
 other professing Christians as that which relates to 
 the non-observance of the so-called ordinances of 
 Baptism and the Supper. Those who plead for the 
 precise fulfilment of the letter under all circumstances, 
 or for the rigid imitation of the practice of the early 
 
53 
 
 disciples^ must in all consistency plead for the per- 
 manent retention of both these rites ; but this also on 
 the same ground involves the retention of circum- 
 cision — for Paul circumcised Timothy, the abstaining 
 from things strangled, the shaving of the head in 
 making a vow, the anointing the sick with oil, and 
 especially the washing of one another's feet as a cere- 
 monial observance. We, on the other hand quote the 
 saying of our Lord Himself, " The words that I speak 
 unto you, they are spirit and they are life." Reveren- 
 cing as deeply the spirit of His teaching as those who 
 differ from us do the literal interpretation, we believe 
 that it is intended that we should separate the essen- 
 tial from the non-essential, the spiritual truth from its 
 varying external clothing; the accidental, temporary 
 and local, from the permanent and unchangeable, 
 retaining all that is vital, but leaving room for the 
 growth and expansion of the life within, by allowing 
 when it has accomplished its purpose, the temporary 
 integument or exterior shell to drop off ; useful, it 
 may have been, for the time that is past, but actually 
 prejudicial when considered as its ultimatum. The 
 old Jewish ceremonies practised long before the 
 advent of Christ, of baptising proselytes with water, 
 and of breaking the bread and handing round the 
 cup at the Passover feast, were continued, with some 
 variation of circumstance, under the New Dispen- 
 sation, and not till the Jewish polity was thoroughly 
 broken up at the siege of Jerusalem could it be 
 
54 
 
 said tliat tlie latter had entirely given place to the 
 former. We must remember that the early disciples 
 were slow in distinguishing between literal and transi- 
 tory observances and the underlying and per- 
 manent spiritual truth. The question is not, 
 "Were these observances still practised by them, 
 but were they rendered of lasting obligation by 
 the command of our Lord ? With regard to 
 baptism, which we will iSrst consider, we believe we 
 are right in distinctly answering, 'No. John the 
 Baptist, who was expressly sent to baptise with water 
 wound up the Old Dispensation and heralded the New. 
 His baptism was the transition rite, preparing the 
 Jews for the Kingdom of Christ, which he announced 
 as at hand. No words could be plainer than those 
 in which he contrasts his water-baptism with the Holy 
 Ghost baptism of the Messiah. (Luke iii. 15, 16. 
 John i. 25-33.) ^' He foresees how his shadowy rite 
 must eventually pass away before the reality." He 
 must increase, but I must decrease." (John iii. 30.) 
 ^^Our Lord submitted to the baptism of John, just as 
 He submitted to circumcision and the Mosaic ritual, 
 in order that in Him it might be fulfilled and emitted 
 in a new form." At the time of His ascension He 
 reminded His disciples of the coming baptism, in the 
 words, " John truly baptised with water, but ye shall 
 be baptised with the Holy Ghost not many days 
 hence." (Acts i. 5). '^The commission of Matt, 
 xxviii. 19., was given in anticipation of the Spirit- 
 
55 
 
 baptism of whicli tlie disciples were so soon to be 
 made partakers at Pentecost ; tbat baptism without 
 which they could neither evangelize, nor themselves 
 baptise others.^' Peter^ it is true, when sent to Cor- 
 nelius^ commanded him and his house to be baptised 
 with >vater, but we must remember the Holy Ghost 
 had been first given, and the elemental rite appears to 
 have been superfluous. Peter was himself taken by 
 surprise, and almost apologizes to his brethren for 
 receiving the Gentiles into the Christian church. 
 
 Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how He 
 said, John indeed baptised with water, but ye shall 
 be baptised with the Holy Ghost," etc. " If, then, 
 God gave unto them the like gift as He did unto us 
 when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I 
 that I could withstand God ? (Acts xi. 17). Very 
 gradually the perception of the Law of the Spirit of 
 Life in Christ Jesus displaced that of adhesion to the 
 letter, but that the necessity for water baptism had 
 given place to that which was spiritual in the minds 
 of Peter and Paul seems evident from the fact that 
 Peter took pains to explain in later life that the 
 baptism which saves was " not the putting away of 
 the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good con- 
 science towards God by the resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ ; " and that Paul, reviewing his past labours, 
 thanked God that he had baptised only a few con- 
 verts, lest any should say that he had baptised in his 
 own name, adding expressly, ^' Christ sent me not to 
 
56 
 
 baptise, but to preacb tbe Gospel/' To those who 
 have savingly experienced tbe baptism of the Holy 
 Ghost, and are yet desirous of receiving baptism by 
 water at the hands of man, might not the startling query 
 of the Apostle to the Gentiles be fitly quoted, " Are ye 
 so foolish ? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now 
 perfected in the flesh ? " (Gal. iii. 3) . Substituting 
 the word baptism for that of circumcision, might we 
 not apply the further words, " In Christ Jesus neither 
 circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, 
 but faith working through love," or as it stands in 
 another passage in the same epistle, "a new creature ? 
 (Gal. V. 6. and vi. 15). This "new creature" is the 
 sure and certain result of Christ's baptism, and of His 
 alone — without it no outward symbol can avail any- 
 thing — with it, having received the reality, of what 
 avails the symbol? The less is superseded by the 
 greater. 
 
 Let us hear the opinions of some men of eminence 
 outside our society on this subject. 
 
 Justin Martyr, who lived in the second century, 
 observed, The only baptism that can heal us is 
 repentance and the knowledge of God. What need 
 is there of that baptism which can only cleanse the 
 flesh and the body ? Be washed in your flesh from 
 wrath and covetousness, from envy and hatred, and 
 behold the body is pure." But as spiritual fervour 
 declined, a strong tendency to ritualism took its place. 
 As early as the third century baptism was considered 
 
57 
 
 necessary for salvation, and was performed after a 
 rite of exorcism, by which evil spirits were said to be 
 expelled. The baptism of bells was continued for 
 several hundred years. Another feature of the liter- 
 alizing spirit was manifested in the baptism by fire 
 which was practised by the Jacobites in Asia, who 
 subjected their poor little children to baptism with a 
 hot iron on their face, ears, or arm. In the place of 
 such extravagant errors, it is refreshing to find that a 
 sect existing in Western Asia, from 600 to 900 A. D., 
 called the Paulicans, maintained that it was by no 
 means Christ's intention to institute baptism by water 
 as a perpetual ordinance, but by baptism He meant 
 only the baptism of the Spirit, for by His teachings 
 He communicated Himself as the holy water for the 
 thorough cleansing of the entire human nature. 
 
 We are told by Neander that all dissenters from the 
 Romish church from 500 to 1100 rejected water 
 baptism. Walter Brute, an eminent English reformer, 
 living at Hereford, in the fifteenth century, denied that 
 anything more was required than repentance and faith 
 in Christ. "Faith," says he, "is a spiritual water, 
 springing from Him, the fountain of wisdom, wherein 
 the soul of the sinner is washed from sin. With this 
 water were the faithful patriarchs baptised before the 
 law. Are not all Christians baptised with the Holy 
 Ghost and with fire ? but not with material fire. 
 Thus, no more is the lotion of water corporeally neces- 
 sary to wash away sins, but only spiritual water; that 
 
68 
 
 is to say, tlie water of faith/' To bring man directly 
 to Christ just as lie is/' remarks Dr. Gumming, "is 
 the grand characteristic of true religion. To keep 
 man from God, and detain him with the priest, the 
 sacraments, the ceremony — is the grand effort of all 
 false religions. There is no regenerative virtue 
 inherent in, or inseparable from baptism ; for baptism 
 is not the Holy Spirit. There is no saving and expi- 
 atory virtue in the Lord's Supper, for the Lord's 
 Supper is not the Lord Jesus Christ. We may not 
 put baptism in the room of the Holy Spirit, nor the 
 Eucharist in the place of the Lord Jesus. We must 
 look far above and beyond them both !" When H. 
 Martyn was pressing the sacraments on a Mahom- 
 medan convert he replied, " These are mere emblems, 
 and if a man have the reality, what need is there of 
 emblems 
 
 Maimonides, a Jewish writer of the twelfth century, 
 tells us that a Gentile who would be received into the 
 covenant of the Jews, must be baptised as well as 
 circumcised, whereby he became a proselyte. "Whence 
 it evidently appears that baptism did not come in the 
 place of circumcision, as has been often urged." 
 
 The Talmud of the second century says, "He is no 
 proselyte unless he be circumcised and baptised. If 
 he be not baptised he remains a Gentile." " Purifying 
 by water," says Dr. Robinson, the Baptist historian, 
 " is of the highest antiquity, anterior to Judaism itself^ 
 The Romans, Greeks, Hebrews, Egyptians, Etruscans, 
 
59 
 
 Ethiopians^ Druids and Celts practised it. Baptism 
 preceded the mission of John, and was practised 
 through all the Jewish ages." 
 
 " Baptism/' says Dr. Dale, ^' is a myriad-sided word, 
 and means that which is capable of producing a 
 change of condition. Classically, it is used in twenty 
 senses. John the Baptist preached repentance- 
 baptism, his purifying with water was simply a con- 
 tinuation of the office of the Levite or Jewish priest.'' 
 No one could express in stronger terms than he did 
 himself, that his mission was merely of a temporary 
 character, and was to pass away when the greater 
 than he should take his place. 
 
 The word Baptism is often figuratively used m 
 Scripture. " I have a baptism to be baptised with," 
 said our blessed Lord, in allusion to His expiatory- 
 work for the sins of mankind. And again. He said 
 to the sons of Zebedee, " Are ye able to be baptised 
 with the baptism wherewith I am baptised ?" In the 
 epistles of Paul this figurative use of the word is of 
 frequent occurrence. Buried with Him in baptism, 
 wherein ye were also raised with Him through faith 
 in the working of God." (R. Y.) 
 
 " The baptism of Christ," says W. Dell, a clergy- 
 man, and master of Caius College, Cambridge, who 
 lived in the early part of the seventeenth century, ^' is 
 spirit or fire-baptism, and this is the one aud only 
 baptism of the New Testament. Its outward instru- 
 ment is not material water, but the Word, as Christ 
 
60 
 
 shows where He says^ 'Teach, baptising/ showing' 
 that teaching the Word is the outward means of 
 baptising with the Spirit, which is suflBcient for all 
 the faithful. He tbat is truly washed from all filthi- 
 ness of the flesh and the spirit, what need hath he of 
 material water to be poured on his body under the 
 pretence of any sign whatever, when he hath the 
 truth, substance, and heavenly thing itself ? " 
 
 Let us hear ''the conclusion of the whole 
 matter succinctly given by a writer of our 
 own day. " He who is truly joined by a living 
 faith to Jesus Christ is a member of His Church, even 
 
 though unowned by any earthly organization For 
 
 union with that Church there needs no baptism or 
 confirmation, or cognizance of priest or minister. The 
 only thing that makes a man a schismatic is that 
 fatal unbelief, which, by cutting him oS from Christ, 
 cuts him off from that Spiritual Church which is the 
 body of Christ.'' 
 
 Part 2. 
 
 In considering the subject of what is called the 
 Lord's Supper, the same general remarks will apply. 
 It does not appear to comport with the tenor of our 
 Lord's teaching to substitute one rite for another, but 
 rather so to spiritualize all our ordinary customs — 
 even eating and drinking — to His glory, that in 
 whatever we do, we may have him in hallowed 
 remembrance. Especially when he was about to 
 
61 
 
 leave His sorrowing disciples, fulfilling even to tlie 
 last the Mosaic law, by partaking with them of the 
 Passover feast, it would seem to be by a most natural 
 transference ot idea that He tenderly asked them to 
 recall Him to rememberance when they should hence- 
 forth observe it, for He was about to fulfil by his death 
 that solemn type, and thus to become " Our Passover, 
 sacrificed for us (1 Cor. v. 7). We, Protestants of 
 the present day, revolt from the idea that His words, 
 " Take, eat, this is My body," were intended to be 
 taken in an outward sense, and yet we know how 
 dogmatically Luther persisted in the doctrine of Con- 
 substantiation, as the Roman Catholics still do in that 
 of Transubstantiation, by adhering to the literal in- 
 terpretation of this passage, and can we consistently 
 dissen^; from their conelusion, if we once admit 
 that all the sayings of Christ were intended in 
 all ages and under all circumstances to be absolutely 
 and literally obeyed ? How many times must 
 the Saviour have sighed in spirit because His followers 
 were slow to understand the true meaning of His 
 words. Looking at everything from an outside stand- 
 point, they literalised His deepest expressions, and 
 even when He spoke of eating the flesh of the Son of 
 Man and drinking His blood, they said in their utter 
 dullness of perception : " This is a hard saying ; , . 
 How can this man give us His flesh to eat ? ^' And then 
 follows the sad result of their misapprehension, "They 
 went away and walked no more with Him." 
 
62 
 
 Ttns again, when, under the figure of leaven, He 
 had wished to caution them against the doctrine of 
 the Scribes and Pharisees, the immediate comment 
 amongst His disciples was, It is because we have no 
 bread !'' Whilst we marvel at such obtuseness of 
 comprehension on their part, should it not be a lesson 
 to us lest we too mistake the real intent of our Lord> 
 and lessen, to our own deep loss, the force of His in- 
 junctions by taking a carnal instead of a spiritual view 
 of His teaching ? We need, as the disciples needed, 
 to grow out of the letter into the spirit; and this we 
 shall do only in proportion as we grow into Him who 
 declared, " The words that I speak unto you, they are 
 spirit and they are life.'' 
 
 In a remarkable paper written by Dean Stanley on 
 The Eucharist '' (Nineteenth Century, Aug., 1878), 
 he says — In theology, in religious conversation, in 
 religious ordinances, we ought as much as possible to 
 try and get beneath the phrases in use, and never to rest 
 satisfied with the words, however excellent, until we 
 have ascertained what we mean by them. Thus alone 
 can we fathom the depth of such phrases ; thus alone 
 can we protect ourselves against the superstition of 
 form and the idols of the market-place ; thus alone 
 can we grasp the realities of which words and forms 
 are the shadow. The passage under consideration in 
 St. John's Gospel (Chapter vi. 53-56), contains this 
 principle, and also is one of the most striking examples 
 of it. It is one of those startling expressions used by 
 
03 
 
 Christ to show us that He intends to drive us from 
 the letter to the spirit, by which He shatters the crust 
 and shell in order to force us to the kernel. 
 
 " It is as if He said — ' It is not enough for you to see 
 the outward face of the Son of Man, or hear His out- 
 ward words, or touch His outward vesture. That is 
 not Himself. It is not enough that you walk by His 
 side, or hear others talk of Him ; or use terms of 
 affection or endearment towards Him. You must go 
 deeper than this ; you must go to His very utmost 
 heart ; to the core and marrow of His being. You 
 must not only read and understand, but you must 
 mark, learn, and inwardly digest and make part of 
 yourselves that which alone can be part of the human 
 
 spirit and conscience' It expresses what St. 
 
 Paul says, ^ Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ ; ' that 
 is, clothe yourself with His Spirit as with a garment. 
 
 It is the general truth which our Lord Himself 
 
 expressed, ' I am the Vine, ye are the branches.' 
 
 It is the figure, not altogether strange to Western 
 ears, but more familiar to the Eastern mind, in which 
 intellectual and moral instruction is represented under 
 the image of eating and drinking, digesting and 
 
 nourishing It is possible that the metaphors of 
 
 the Bible on this subject shall be felt to have been so 
 misused and distorted that they also shall pass into 
 the same abeyance as has already overtaken some ex- 
 pressions which formerly were no less dear to pious 
 hearts than these But whatever betide, it is alike 
 
64 
 
 the duty and tne hope, whether of those who fondly 
 cling to these forms or words, or of those who think... 
 that they can dispense with them, to keep steadily in 
 view the moral realities, for the sake of which alone, 
 (if Christianity be the universal religion), such forms 
 exist, and which will survive the disappearance, even 
 of the most venerable ordinances, even of the most 
 sacred phrases. Nevertheless, whilst claiming, in 
 accordance with the general tenor of the Xew Dis- 
 pensation, that the celebration of the Passover was 
 not intended to be converted into any other permanent 
 external rite, it is most important that we do not allow 
 to sink into abeyance the deep teaching of our Lord 
 Himself, that for the maintenance of our spiritual life 
 it is essential to feed spiritually upon Him whose body 
 was broken and whose blood was shed for us. 
 
 Even those who contend most strenuously for 
 the necessity of the continued observance of 
 the ^' Lord^s Supper " have allowed such wide 
 divergence from the primitive practice, that it is hard 
 to see how they can assume that they are perpetuating 
 the same thing. A ceremonial administered by a 
 priest at the end of morning worship, is not an evening 
 meal shared tosfether in common. 
 
 Dean Stanley in his " Christian Institutions," takes 
 pains to show that the present mode of observing the 
 Rites, both of Baptism and the Supper, differs exceed- 
 ingly from that of early times. If so, what Command 
 can be pleaded for the present manner of observance? 
 
65 
 
 " Infant Communion/' lie says, once universal 
 throughout the whole church, and still retained in the 
 East, has been forbidden throughout the whole 
 Western Church, Catholic and Protestant alike. 
 
 Daily communion, universal in the primitive 
 church, has for the vast majority of Christians, been 
 discontinued both in East and W^est. 
 
 "Evening Communion, the original time of the 
 ordinance, has been forbidden by the Roman Church. 
 
 " Solitary Communion has been forbidden by the 
 English Church. 
 
 " Death-bed Communion has been forbidden by the 
 Scottish Church. 
 
 " It is difficult to imagine changes, short of total 
 abolition, more sweeping than these. But yet they 
 were induced by the higher instincts of Christendom, 
 which grieved to see its most sacred ceremony 
 degraded into a charm." 
 
 A short extract from the same writer with regard 
 to the changes which have taken place in administer- 
 ing the rite of Baptism may find place here, as tending 
 to show that the plea of the literal observance of a 
 command is not sustained by similarity of practice ; 
 and if this can be proved, what is left but the essential 
 reality of the thing typified ? " In the patristic age 
 there was (usually) but one baptistry in each city, and 
 that apart from the church. There was but one time 
 of the year in which it was administered, viz., between 
 Easter and Pentecost. There was but one person 
 
66 
 
 who could administer it, the Bishop. There was but 
 one hour for the ceremony, it was midnight. 
 
 " The torches flared through the dark hall as the 
 troops of converts flocked in. They stretched forth 
 their hands through the dimly-lit chamber, as in a 
 defiant attitude towards the Evil Spirit of Darkness, 
 and speaking to him by name said, ' I renounce 
 thee, Satan, and all thy works, and all thy pomps, 
 and all thy service.' Before and after the immersion 
 their bare limbs were rubbed with oil from head to 
 foot ; they were then clothed in white gowns and 
 received the kiss of peace and a taste of honey and 
 milk as a token of the kindly feeling of their new 
 brotherhood, and they expressed their new faith by 
 using for the first time, the Lord's Prayer. These 
 are the outer forms,'' continues the Dean, ^' of which, 
 in the Western churches, almost every particular is 
 altered, even in the most material points." 
 
 Not less striking is the change of feeling and 
 thought which, in the centuries succeeding the 
 Apostolic Age, crept in respecting what was known 
 as the Lord's Supper. Superstitious ideas, almost 
 approaching to an act of worship, were entertained 
 regarding it. 
 
 Chrysostom calls it " a most awful sacrifice, at which 
 the very angels shuddered." The viaticum, or holy 
 wafer, was considered, as its name implies, to be a 
 passport to heaven when put in the mouths of the 
 dying; it was kept in the houses of the people and 
 
67 
 
 attached to their "bodies like a talisman to defend 
 them from evil. 
 
 One eminent evangelist of another society of pro- 
 fessing Christians, assured the writer that amongst 
 Lutherans in some parts of the continent of Europe, the 
 rite was intervening between Christ and the soul as an 
 object of dependence. Is it not to be feared, that 
 more or less, this is becoming the casein England also ? 
 
 In The Spectator for August, 1872, is the following 
 reply to Dr. Newman's " Christianity as a System : 
 
 "The words in which the Eucharist is spoken of by 
 St. Luke and St. Paul in no respect introduce that 
 meaning which the church has put upon them. What 
 can be stronger against the sanctity of particular 
 places, nay, of any institution, rites or persons at all, 
 than our Lord's declaration that God is a Spirit and 
 they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit 
 
 and in truth ? The tone of the New Testament is 
 
 unsacramental, and the impression it leaves on the mind 
 is not that of a priesthood and its attendant system." 
 
 We would remind those who plead our Lord's words 
 as a conclusive evidence that He intended to establish 
 a ceremonial of permanent obligation, that the argu- 
 ment in favour of washing one another's feet as a 
 Christian rite, rests on as strong a ground as any that 
 can be adduced for the observance of the Supper. 
 " I have given you an example," says Christ, " that 
 ye should do as I have done to you." Accepting this 
 as a literal command, the Roman Catholic church, in 
 
68 
 
 the person of the Pope, has, though with strange 
 variations, continued to perform the act, as did also the 
 early Calvinistic Baptists and the Flemish Mennonites; 
 how it is (except by that spirit of accommodation and 
 extension of meaning, for which we have pleaded, 
 translating the letter of the act into the spirit), that 
 the Protestant bodies have agreed to reject the one 
 and retain the other ? The words of the apostle to 
 the Corinthian church, on which so much stress is 
 laid at the present day, do not so much appear to ex- 
 press a command, as to administer a rebuke to those 
 who, while professing to hold a sacred feast, had 
 abused it with shameful practices ; and the very fact 
 of its early degeneracy, combined with the strife 
 which has since arisen as to the right method of its 
 observance, and the fearful dependence which many, 
 even in the hour of death, are placing upon it, would 
 seem to convince us that it is far more in accordance 
 with the will of our Lord that we should elevate our 
 ordinary and social meals by a constant remembrance 
 of Himself, than that at stated times, we should 
 practice a religious rite, administered by a priest 
 appointed for the purpose ! 
 
 Let us consider a little more particularly the steps 
 which led to its altered character. The Passover, as 
 we know, was held only once a year, and so slowly 
 did the New Dispensation take the place of the Old, 
 that the Jewish Christians observed it till the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem, 
 
69 
 
 The daily meal, shared together when the disciples 
 had all things in common, became, in the Jewish and 
 Gentile churches, known under the name of Love- 
 feast or Agape, and was "partly social and partly 
 religious," partly also partaking of a benevolent 
 character, as the term Eucharist implies, " a sacrifice 
 of praise and thanksgiving.'^ 
 
 "In those early times," remarks Dean Stanley, "it 
 was the common festive gathering of rich and poor 
 in the same social meal, to which, as St. Paul en- 
 joiaed, every one was to bring his portion. And 
 further, with this practice, of which almost all traces 
 have disappeared from all modern modes of admin- 
 istering the Lord's Supper, there was united, from the 
 earliest times, the practice of collectiog alms and 
 contributions for the poor at the time when our 
 Christian communion and fellowship with each other 
 
 is most impressed upon ns Gradually the repast 
 
 was separated from the religious act. The repast 
 became more and more secular, the religious act more 
 and more sacred. From century to century the 
 breach widened. The ministers alone, instead of the 
 congregation, took the task of distributing the 
 elements. The daily administration ceased and was 
 confined to Sundays and festivals. Finally, the meal 
 itself fell under suspicion. Augustine and Ambrose 
 condemned it, and in the fifth century that which had 
 been the original form of the Eucharist was forbidden 
 as profane by the councils of Carthage and Laodicia." 
 
70 
 
 It is somewliat remarkable," we quote from the 
 *^ Early Churcli History/' by Backhouse and Tylor, 
 "that neither Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Poly carp, 
 nor others of the early Apologists, make any 
 allusion to the Lord's Supper. Ignatius says nothing 
 respecting the outward observance, but pours out his 
 soul for the spiritual communion. ^ I seek the bread 
 of God,' he says, ' which is Jesus Christ, and I seek 
 His blood, which is love incorruptible ! ' " 
 
 The view of the non-perpetuity of any outward 
 "sacrament/' as it is called, was not altogether 
 peculiar to Friends, nor did it originate with them^ 
 although they arrived at it from independent con- 
 viction. There were some, in the early days of 
 Christianity, who rejected both the ordinances, and 
 in the eleventh century, Robert, King of France, caused 
 thirteen noblemen to be burnt at the stake simply for 
 denying their necessity. More than a century before 
 the time of George Fox, Schwenkfeld, a Silesian noble- 
 man, personally acquainted with Luther, "having 
 studied the Holy Scriptures day and night, expresses 
 his belief that the participation in the Lord's Supper 
 should be tied to no such outward eating and drinking, 
 and he neither partook of it himself nor recommended 
 it to his followers, though he left them at liberty. 
 His words are; ^The eternal High Priest, Jesus 
 Christ, invites the believing table-guests unto holiness, 
 
 and it is bound to no outward thing As often as 
 
 a man receives divine sweetness in Christ, so often 
 
71 
 
 he keeps the Lord's Supper with Christ. We shall 
 also strive that we may keep it daily with Him/ " 
 
 Strikingly in accordance with this view are the 
 words of Barclay, " The Communion of the body and 
 blood of Christ is inward and spiritual, which is the 
 participation of His flesh and blood, by which the 
 inward man is daily nourished in the hearts of those 
 in whom Christ dwells. Of which things the break- 
 ing of bread by Christ with His disciples was a figure, 
 which even they who had received the substance used 
 in the church for a time, even as abstaining from 
 things strangled, &c., yet seeing they are but shadows 
 of better things, they cease in such as have obtained 
 the substance. 
 
 Yet whilst accepting the noble maxim, that 
 " the spirit and not the letter of the law 
 is the essence of every great and good utterance,'' it 
 is of paramount importance that our religion should 
 not consist in negations. The disuse of the form 
 must be the result of possessing the reality or it will 
 avail us nothing. We must come to Christ that we 
 may realize for ourselves His own soul-purifying 
 baptism, even ^' the baptism of the Holy Ghost and 
 of fire." We must open our hearts that the Lord 
 Jesus may come in and sup with us and we with Him. 
 Then shall we know for ourselves the deep significance 
 of His own saying, The words that I speak unto 
 you, they are spirit and they are Zi/e." 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 War. 
 
 Collateral testimonies from Tertallian, Lamartine, Gibbon, &c. 
 
 ^^Put up again thy sword into his place.'^ 
 
 — Matt. xxvi. 52. 
 
 We come next to consider the subject of war. 
 The Society of Friends has ever taken its stand on 
 the general tenor of the teaching of Christ, and His 
 expressed words, " Love your enemies." On this 
 ground alone is its position impregnable. 
 
 The refusal of many of the early Christians to bear 
 arms was based on a precisely similar principle, 
 "J am a Christian, and therefore I cannot fight 
 Cassion, the notary, and Maximilian, were both 
 martyred because they could neither enlist nor remain 
 in the army after they had embraced Christianity. 
 Tertullian says, " Can a soldier's life be lawful when 
 Christ has pronounced that he who lives by the sword 
 shall perish by the sword ? Can one who professes 
 the peaceable doctrines of the Gospel be a soldier, 
 when it is his duty not so much as to go to law ? " 
 Lactantius declares, " It can never be lawful for a 
 righteous man to go to war, as war is unrighteous in 
 
73 
 
 itself/' Gibbon says, The bumble Christians were 
 sent into the world as sheep among wolves, and since 
 they were not permitted to employ force, even in the 
 defence of their religion, they deemed that they should 
 1)6 still more criminal if they were tempted to shed 
 the blood of their fellow-creatures in disputing the 
 vain privileges or the sordid possessions of this tran- 
 sitory life." Lamartine says, War, very far from 
 being the progress of humanity, is only Murder in 
 Mass, which retards it, afflicts, decimates it, dishonours 
 it. The nations who sport in blood are instruments 
 of ruin, not instruments of life to the world. They 
 may grow, but they grow contrary to the purposes of 
 God, and end by losing in one day of justice that 
 which they have conquered through years of violence.'^ 
 
 Prize-fighting has been rightly declared to be 
 barbarous. Duelling could no longer remain legal- 
 ized in the face of the advancing civilisation of our 
 country ; when will Christianity so assert her sway 
 over all Christendom as to forbid the resort to the 
 demon of War ? 
 
 When shall the reproach be rolled away that the 
 lieathen have more faith in their false gods than 
 Christians in their great Lawgiver ? 
 
 John Ruskin says, The Christian religion which 
 we have been taught for two thousand years 
 is still so little conceived by us that we suppose 
 the laws of charity and self-sacrifice bear upon 
 individuals ia all their social relations, and yet do 
 
74 
 
 not bear upon nations in any of tlieir political 
 relations." — Stones of Venice. 
 
 As we have been drawing on outside evidence in 
 confirmation of our own principles on this subject, we 
 will give a quotation from the pen of a gentlemen of 
 high, position who associated from childhood with the 
 first military circles, many of his nearest connections 
 having distinguished themselves in the Army or Navy, 
 His own conclusions have been, therefore, attained in 
 the face of all educational prejudices, and purely by 
 the force of irresistible Christian conviction. He 
 says : — Having consulted the highest authority how 
 I shall best succeed in overcoming evil, and having 
 examined what all experience and all well-considered 
 theory can teach on the subject, I find that force of 
 arms has ever been uncertain in its power to save, 
 even for a time ; I find that courageous coolness, 
 united with fearless goodwill even towards enemies, 
 has, both in theory and practice, far more power to 
 subdue than force of arms ; and I find that God's 
 own teaching is explicit on the subject. Therefore I 
 am sure that the best way to secure the safety of 
 country or family is by open declared love to man, 
 
 and obedience to God This is my principle ; if 
 
 professing followers of the Lord of Hosts, the Captain 
 of Salvation, have the wisdom and courage to follow 
 His counsel in preparation, and to obey His command 
 in action, they will show the world what it is to over- 
 come evil with goodJ* 
 
75 
 
 "Can nothing be done," said the late Samuel 
 Morley, M.P., " to lead to the establishment of some- 
 international tribunal to which might be referred 
 misunderstandings between one country and another,, 
 which, although serious in their results, are generally 
 trifling in their origin ? Our commerce, our civili- 
 sation, and above all, our Christianity, alike protest 
 against the enormous wickedness and inhumanity of 
 war." 
 
 Canon Fremantle recently declared in Canterbury 
 Cathedral that ^-^we must love Christian justice and 
 goodness more than imperial power. We must 
 submit, if need be, to the loss of prestige, that we 
 may do right or repair wrong. We must risk much, 
 rather than bring about war ; we must risk all rather 
 than do w^rong." 
 
 Bishop Fraser says, " War is not the triumph of 
 righteousness. It is the triumph of brute force. Can 
 anything be conceived more un-Christian, more 
 irrational, than the present mode in which interna- 
 tional quarrels are commonly adjusted ? I am aware 
 that certain plausible arguments are forthcoming in 
 
 favour of War But I respectfully submit that there 
 
 are other ways of restoring the purity of the nation 
 and of maintaining national honour, other ways of 
 showing the spirit of patriotism, than by resorting to 
 the savage and irrational conclusions of War." 
 
 If any, looking simply from the stand-point of a 
 worldly policy, should say, "The Peace principles 
 
76 
 
 ^ill never work ; " we would reply that in the face of 
 very unpromising circumstances, they were fairly 
 tried under the wise government of William Penn, 
 and the Holy Experiment " as it as been called, was 
 found completely to answer. "This was the treaty of 
 which it has been said that it was the only one ever 
 made with the Indians that was not ratified by an 
 
 oath, and the only one that was never broken 
 
 And this triumphant result followed a policy of 
 simple justice and of obedience to the command of 
 the Divine Master, ^ ^Yh.atsoever ye would that men 
 should do to you, do ye even so to them."*^ ' " 
 
 The rei^n of Him who Himself declared, "My 
 kingdom is not of this world, if My kingdom were of 
 this world then would My servants fight," — that reign 
 which was ushered in by the angelic song, " Peace on 
 €arth, goodwill to men," appears so self-evidently 
 opposed to the awful carnage of the battle field, that it 
 only affords another humiliating proof of the perversion 
 of the human understanding by the fall, that casuistic 
 argument or subtle sophistry can avail with any who 
 bear the name of Christian to reconcile such departure 
 from the spirit of the Christian code. He who was 
 emphatically called the "Prince of Peace," who com- 
 manded His disciples to love their enemies, who said 
 to the impetuous Peter, "Put up thy sword into its 
 sheath," leads His hosts to battle in another warfare, 
 
 *From " Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends," by Jane 
 Budge. 
 
the weapons o£ whicli are not carnal but spiritual, 
 directed not against flesh and blood_, but against 
 spiritual wickedness in higb places/^ Holding this 
 faith, we continue to bear an unflinching testimony 
 against all war, while we wait in earnest expectation 
 for the approach of that day, the consummation of 
 all that we long for, when ''the mountain of the 
 Lord's house shall be established in the top of the 
 mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and 
 all nations shall flow into it" — when the people 
 '' shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their 
 spears into pruning hooks,'' when '' nation shall not 
 lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn 
 war any more." 
 
CHAPTER YI. 
 Oaths. 
 
 Collateral testimonies ; Linacre, Carey, &c. 
 
 Above all things, my brethren, swear not but 
 
 let your yea, be yea, and your nay, nay, lest ye come 
 into condemnation J ^ 
 
 — James iv. 12. 
 
 The next point to wliicli we will devote a few words 
 is tliat of Judicial Oaths, for their testimony with 
 regard to which we know that the early Friends 
 suffered most unjustly and severely. Yet they were 
 by no means the first to declare that swearing, under 
 any pretext, was a violation of the command of the 
 Founder of our religion. For the first three centuries 
 •after Christ up to the time of Constantine, it appears 
 that Christians had no doubt on the subject, for 
 nothing could be plainer than our Lord's words, 
 
 Swear not at all.'" But as it was in the case of war, 
 so with swearing. When Christianity began to 
 decline, the pure teaching of the Master was dis- 
 regarded. We are told of a learned man. Dr. Linacre, 
 who was a teacher in Oxford University, Physician to 
 Henry YIL, and tutor to the Prince of Wales, but 
 
79 
 
 who, living in the darkness that prevailed three cen- 
 turies ago, had never seen the New Testament till he 
 lay on his death-bed, and as he read the precept, 
 
 Swear not at all/' he exclaimed, " Either this is not 
 true, or we are not Christians.'^ 
 
 Carey, the first English missionary to the heathen, 
 and the originator of English Protestant Missions, had 
 conscientious scruples against taking an oath : he 
 condemned severely the manner in which oaths were 
 administered, and vehemently urged the propriety of 
 altogether dispensing with them. On three several 
 occasions he made known his views on this subject to 
 those in authority, and once, at considerable per- 
 sonal inconvenience, had to suffer the consequences of 
 his refusal. 
 
 The Albigenses, Moravians, and afterwards the 
 Mennonites, shared in the same testimony. We may, 
 indeed, rejoice that persecution on this account has 
 at length given place to liberty of conscience, and 
 that anyone in the British Empire who has a con- 
 scientious objection to an oath may now take the 
 affirmation in a court of law. 
 
CHAPTEK YII. 
 
 The Geound op Protest against conformity to^the 
 
 WORLD. 
 
 Collateral testimonies ; Cyprian, St. Augustine, Edward 
 Denison, &c. 
 
 ^^Not fashioning yourselves according to your former 
 lusts in your ignorance,^' 
 
 —1 Pet. i. 14. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 ^'What a tremendous innovation on our work-a-day 
 world is Christianity ! What a steady nonconformity 
 to the world's habits it demands of its votaries !" 
 So wrote the young and gifted Edward Denison, M. P» 
 for Newark, who lived a life of self-sacrifice, and early 
 heard his Master's "Well done, good and faithful 
 servant !" 
 
 It was the deep conviction of the truth so power- 
 fully expressed in the few words we have quoted 
 above, which led the Early Friends to bear an uncom- 
 promising testimony against the adulatory flattery 
 and trifling vanities of the corrupt age in which they 
 lived. 
 
81 
 
 It has often been erroneously supposed^ at least in 
 earlier times^ that they advocated a certain garb, and 
 aimed at peculiarity of expression, but this was 
 simply the unavoidable result of not changing with 
 the changing stream of fashion ; the true spirit of 
 their testimony on these subjects being that "every 
 visible habit and action, dress, language, behaviour, 
 furniture, diet, pursuits, companions,'^ and even his 
 choice of amusements and recreations should bear 
 witness that the Christian's rest is not here, but that 
 his " citizenship is in Heaven." It is the privilege of 
 the followers of the meek and lowly Jesus, to be as 
 His living " epistles, known and read of all men/' 
 
 The Society of Friends, in its corporate capacity, 
 has refused to sanction the practice of putting on 
 mourning for the dead, first, because it is not always a 
 truthful expression of feeling; second, because it 
 often entails on survivors cost and expense which can- 
 not suitably be incurred, and which sometimes leads 
 into debt ; third, because at a time when God would 
 speak to the soul, through the solemn visitation of 
 death, it is very undesirable to have the mind diverted 
 by attention to outward attire ; fourth, because injury 
 to health and to sight is frequently the result con- 
 sequent upon the pressure of work at such times; 
 and lastly, because when we know that our dear ones 
 are taken to eternal bliss above, some unselfish sym- 
 pathy in their joy is often graciously permitted, and 
 the sable garb of woe seems at variance with the 
 
82 
 
 "voice from Heaven^ Blessed are tlie dead that die 
 in tlie Lord/' 
 
 " It was consonant with the new and glorious hope 
 brought in through the Gospel, that the early- 
 Christians should despise and cast aside the whole 
 paraphernalia of mourning which they saw around 
 them : — the sackcloth and ashes and rent garments 
 of the Jews_, the black apparel of the Komans, and 
 the mourners hired to wail in both Eastern and 
 Western nations. 
 
 " Cyprian expresses himself in very strong terms re- 
 garding mourning and mourning apparel. Writing 
 concerning those who died in the pestilence in the 
 reigns of Callus and Valerian, he says : ' How often 
 and how manifestly has it been revealed to me by the 
 condescension of Cod that I should publicly declare 
 that our brethren who are escaped from this world 
 by the Lord's summons are not to be lamented, since 
 we know that they are not lost, but gone before. 
 Though they are to be longed for, they are not to be 
 bewailed ; and it is not becoming to us to put on hlacJc 
 garments for them hei'e, when they are already clothed 
 in white raiment there,' 
 
 " So Augustine, still later, queries, 'Why should we 
 disfigure ourselves with black, unless we would 
 imitate the unbelieving nations, not only in their 
 wailing for the dead, but also in their mourning 
 apparel ? Be assured these are foreign and unlawful 
 usages, but if lawful, they are not becoming.' The 
 
83 
 
 coffin was borne to the grave on tlie shoulders of tlie 
 kinsmen and near friends, who, as they went along, 
 sang hymns of hope and praise." — Backhouse and 
 Tylor^s ''Early Church History Even when those 
 who had suffered martyrdom were carried by their 
 friends to burial in the Catacombs, no outward sign of 
 mourning was apparent. Songs of triumph marked 
 the occasion, witnessing to the truth of the words en- 
 graved over the tomb : " Mors conscia Christi, 
 nescia Mortis." 
 
 And now in bringing these cursory remarks to a 
 conclusion, we think it will be evident to those who 
 have followed the course of this paper, that the 
 Society of Friends have accepted in general, the spirit 
 of the teaching of the New Testament rather than the 
 exact formula of its words. They believe that herein 
 lies the superior glory of the New Dispensation in 
 contra- distinction to that of the Old, adapting it not 
 alone to one favoured race, or to one period of the 
 world's history, but from the very power of its in- 
 herent expansiveness, fitting it for all modifications of 
 race and age to the end of time, and thus giving in- 
 controvertible evidence of its Divine origin. The 
 "last days," so long the subject of prophecy, have 
 dawned upon us. Christ, the High Priest of good 
 things to come, has clearly announced His Kingdom ; 
 the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, has been given to 
 guide His people into all truth. 
 
 Under this blessed reign we are living : are we 
 
84 
 
 true and loyal subjects ? It is our glorious privilege 
 to be led about, not by tbe pillar of fire and cloud in 
 our wilderness journey, but by Him who has declared 
 Himself to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life/' 
 But in order to discern His guidance, we need the 
 single eye and the submissive heart. We need ta 
 walk in that close communion which brings us, so ta 
 speak, ^^en rapport with our Lord, quickening our 
 spiritual instincts and enabling us to distinguish His 
 voice from the voice of the stranger. It is of the 
 utmost importance that we are not self-deceived here, 
 for the guile of the enemy is never more successfully 
 exerted than by specious imitations of this blessed 
 truth, leading to grievous errors. We are told by 
 our Lord Himself that the especial oflBce of the Holy 
 Spirit was to glorify Him, and we may well consider 
 as a delusion any pretention to spiritual guidance 
 which tends to lower Christ in His character or offices. 
 " We shall be very willing,^' says Barclay, to admit 
 it as a positive, certain maxim, that whatsoever any 
 do, pretending to the Spirit, which is contrary to the 
 Scriptures be accounted a delusion of the devil." 
 Our place of safety is at the feet of Jesus. " I thank 
 Thee, oh Father," were His own words, " that Thou 
 hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and 
 hast revealed them unto babes." 
 
 It remains finally to consider whether the mission 
 of the Society of Friends has fulfilled its pur- 
 pose, and whether it can, without injury to the 
 
85 
 
 spread of the Kedeemer's kingdom, retire from the 
 field. 
 
 We believe that the unanimous answer from the 
 spiritually minded of other Churches would be, " We 
 cannot spare you yet/^ Let us rather seek for greater 
 faithfulness in upholding the banner given us to 
 bear, nor desert our post till the time come, shadowed 
 forth by the author of a paper called The Future of 
 Quakerism 
 
 " When the other Christian Churches are willing 
 to lay down the sword; 
 
 " When they cease to claim any priestly power for 
 their minsters above their lay members ; 
 
 ''When judicial swearing no longer degrades the 
 national standard of truthfulness ; 
 
 " When preaching for the sake of money is declared 
 intolerable ; 
 
 "When no ordinance or ceremony is held to be 
 necessary to salvation, but only a practical faith in our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, and rose 
 again for our justification ; 
 
 '' When Christian worship is recognised to consist 
 simply in spiritual communion with God, the ministers 
 of the word being of God^s appointment and God's 
 preparing ; 
 
 '' When the voice of Christ in the heart and the 
 sensible influence of the Spirit of Truth leading into 
 all truth are more universally spoken of as realities to 
 be the guide of a man's life and actions ; 
 
86 
 
 When tlie churclies make a more definite effort 
 not to be conformed to the world." 
 
 Then^ whether the present Society continue or not 
 is a matter of comparative indifference, — the truths it 
 has ever held and taught are old as Christianity, and 
 co-existent with it. 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary- SpeerUbraor 
 
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