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A FALLEN FAITH: 
 
 BEING A 
 
 HISTORICAL, RELIGIOUS, AND SOCIO POLITICAL SKETCH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 
 
LONDON: 
 RN.HARD BARRETT, PRINTER 
 .MARK LAKE 
 
OF P»/A?^ 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH: , in 4 
 
 MAY 16 1918 
 
 HISTORICAL, RELIGIOUS, AND SOCIO-POLITICAL SKETCH 
 
 SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 
 
 EDGAR SHEPPARD, M.D., 
 
 LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, AND FELLOW OF 
 THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS. 
 
 " Sir, I am a man of the world, anil I take the colour of the world as it moves along." 
 
 Dr. Johnson. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PIPER, STEPHENSON AND SPENCE, 
 PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 1859. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/fallenfaithbeingOOshep 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It will become obvious to any one who takes the trouble 
 to read this Essay, that the subject of which it treats is 
 not handled in a connected and closely logical, but, rather, 
 in a discursive, manner. The Author has felt that the 
 bearings of that singular Eclecticism named the Society of 
 Friends, are so multiform, and extend their ramifications 
 into so many matters and principles, not ordinarily recog- 
 nized as influencing Religious Creeds, that he has preferred 
 the course here alluded to and adopted. Moreover, such 
 a mode of treatment is in accordance with the habits of his 
 own mind. 
 
 It will be seen that the Decadence of Quakerism is 
 rather attributed to that which is physically, mentally, 
 and socio-politically obstructive, than to that which is 
 purely theological. The system is regarded as an un- 
 healthy and prohibitory one, incapable of exercising that 
 true discipline which can alone eventuate in lofty Christian 
 excellence. The Quakers who have been excellent have 
 been so (as will be shown) by a repudiation of their own 
 principles. The Author does not admit the validity of the 
 argument, that liability to abuse a blessing necessitates 
 the non-usage of that blessing. 
 
vi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The censure which has been dealt out to the Society 
 of Friends, both in respect of its morbid origin and its 
 morbid continuity, is compatible with the largest measure 
 of respect for individual members. It will be seen, too, 
 that, in various places, this respect has been abundantly 
 yielded. And the Author feels it but justice to state, that 
 some of the most excellent characters he has ever met with 
 have professed those principles which are here brought 
 under consideration. At the same time, they have been 
 transition Quakers, fully recognizing the follies of their 
 Faith, and the prospect of its inevitable decay. 
 
 London, November, 1859. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 General Introduction. — Definition of Quakerism. — Necessity 
 of some sketch of Fox, and the antecedents of the .Society, in 
 order to understand its present position. — Intemperate con- 
 duct of the early Founders, especially of Fox. — His great 
 ignorance, but his great self-denial. — Opinion as to Fox's 
 Insanity : justified by an appeal to our knowledge of symp- 
 toms, and his own recorded condition. — Inability to see, 
 with Quakers, any Divine Instrumentality in the raising up 
 of Fox. — His Birth and Early Years. — First invasion of his 
 Disease: Religious Melancholia, with Delusions, and Maniacal 
 Excitement. — His extraordinary Hallucinations. — Analogous 
 to those of Mahomet. — Opinion as to morbid sensibility of 
 all the early disciples of Fox.— His violation of the conven- 
 tionalisms and amenities of Society. — His fierce abuse of the 
 Clergy of the Established Church. — His punishment for 
 disturbing the Church's Services misnamed Persecution. — 
 Similar conduct now would receive the same reward. — Cha- 
 racter of Fox's writings. — His Death. — Sketch of William 
 Penn. — His great superiority to Fox. — Intemperate abuse of 
 his earlier, compared with that of his later, writings. — Sketch 
 of Eobert Barclay, the Author of the celebrated ' Apology? — 
 His prediction of the undying character of his Creed. — What 
 are the Causes of its Decline ? —Reply by Divisional arrange- 
 ment of Subject 1 
 
 I. First Cause. — Exaltation of Inward Testimony above Scrip- 
 ture. — Barclay's Definition of the relative merits of the two. 
 — Extravagances induced by this Doctrine.— Reasons alleged 
 for embracing it. — Liability to abuse Scripture thereby. — 
 Liability to mistake morbid states of Depression and Exalta- 
 tion for Spiritual Emptiness or Plenitude. — Importance of 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 utilizing means already at our disposal, before praying for 
 ends. — Ignorance has no right to attempt interpretation, 
 under supposed Spiritual influences. — But one educated may 
 interpret. — What one may receive another cannot. — Diffi- 
 culty and danger of interpreting parts, without reference to 
 whole. — Different Creeds which have been shaped out from 
 Scripture. — Barclay's intemperate language contrary to 
 spirit of the Gospel. So also that of most early Quaker 
 writers : proved by Quotations. — Inconsistency of Quaker 
 Creed : Maintain the Doctrine of Inward Testimony, yet 
 maintain plain Teaching of the Letter. — Becommendation 
 in Rules of Discipline to study early Literature of Society. — 
 Society's early Literature unfit for pure and uncontaminated 
 minds. — Importance of fixed Standard of Appeal, in Beason 
 and Scripture. — Belief in " Special Brovidences" in the 
 minutiaj of daily life, is an extension of the Doctrine of 
 " Inward Testimony." — Sydney Smith's exposure and repu- 
 diation of it, as dangerous and unscriptural. — Illustrations. 
 — Importance of undeviating Law and Order : which does 
 not interfere with the legitimate objects of Brayer 25 
 
 II. Second Cause. — Imperfect Ministerial Organization. — 
 Fox's repudiation of Learning. — Ignorance to be grappled 
 by Organized Instrumentalities. — Bower to do good not 
 necessarily in the ratio of wish to do good. — Quaker 
 Ministry inefficient, by its very construction. — The Labourer 
 is worthy of his hire. — Importance of the right thing in the 
 right place. — Illustration of this Truth from a modern picture. 
 — The same means produce the same ends, adapted according 
 to varying circumstances. — Berception of variety of character 
 and circumstance the secret of success.— Quakerism an ideal 
 abstraction. — Desires ends, but repudiates means. — ■ Brimi- 
 tiveness," though Scriptural, is not for to-day. — Efforts to do 
 good not always disinterested.- — Quaker principles antago- 
 nistic to the Discipline which produces good. — Quakerism not 
 a happy, because a morbidly introverting Beligion. — Admis- 
 sion of abuse to which the system of ordaining Ministers 
 without reference to their real capacity, is liable, — Want of 
 expansiveness and sympathy ruin any cause. —Advantage of 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 travel and Society. — Ministration of Women a social evil. — 
 They are not fitted for it. — Emotionalism compared with 
 Judgment. — Importance of a healthy and cheerful Eeligion 
 for young girls. — Mrs. Fry. — The value of what is inspired, 
 unaffected by its being committed to paper. — Grace will 
 not amend mental and physical incapacity for ministerial 
 work 55 
 
 III. Third Came. — Imperfect Character of Worship. — 
 "Silent Worship" unhealthy and inane. — Its insularity 
 augments the difficulty of originating and sustaining it. — 
 Importance of the accessories of a ritual, and of objective 
 and subjective associations, in Worship. • — Importance of 
 cultivating all the social virtues. — The next life an engraft- 
 ment upon this. — He who has best utilized the one, most 
 capable of appreciating and enjoying the other 92 
 
 IV. Fourth Cause. — General Physical, Mental, and Moral, 
 Deterioration of Society's Members. — Intimate connexion 
 between physical, moral, and spiritual health. — Importance 
 of knowing this, for the proper cultivation of Religious 
 Virtue. — Unhealthful appearance of Quakers. — Their deteri- 
 oration : from want of cheerfulness, and from Intermarriages. 
 — Their liability to Insanity. — The character of their In- 
 sanity. — Importance of adopting correct terms, in speaking 
 of it. — Illustration. — Frequency of Eeligious Insanity. — The 
 reason why. — Sketch of the Life of J. J. Gurney. — Contrast 
 between his emotional Eeligion, and the practical Eeligion 
 
 of Xavier. — Cheerfulness 108 
 
 V. Fifth Cause. — Socio-political peculiarities of Various 
 Kinds. — Importance of sustaining the conventionalisms and 
 courtesies of Society. — Their repudiation by Quakers. — Their 
 preference for " primitiveness." — Society changes, and is not 
 " primitive." — General compliance conservative and neces- 
 sary. — Our opportunities are not all equal : either physical, 
 moral, intellectual, or spiritual. — Importance of maintaining 
 Social Distinctions. — Importance of general cultivation, as 
 favourable to Spiritual Influences. — Scripture will not afford 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE . 
 
 general cultivation. — It is stamped with the infirmities of 
 those through whom it was transmitted to us. — Importance 
 of confining it, as a court of appeal, to Theology only. — The 
 littleness of our knowledge. — The largeness of our aspira- 
 tions. — Plainness of Apparel. — Vision respecting it, to 
 one of Penn's Family. — Penn's Life in America rather at 
 variance with plainness. — Immense influence of peculiarity 
 of dress upon defection of Society's members. — Its injurious 
 effect upon children. — J. J. Gurney and Sydney Smith, on 
 this subject, contrasted. — Specious sanctity. — Mrs. Fry's 
 opinion. — Effects of woman's inj udieiousness. — Perversion of 
 ancient prophecies to the subject of modern dress. — St.Paul. — 
 Christ. — Colour. — Plainness of Speech. — Quakers are really 
 neither plain nor straightforward in speech. — Examples. 
 — Genera] improvement of individual members. — Games, 
 Sports, Music, Tithes, &c. — Importance of cheerful views 
 of Eeligion, for young children, reiterated. — Illustrated by 
 reference to childhood of Gurney and Mrs. Fry.— System of 
 prohibitions wrong: not true Discipline. — Music. — All nature 
 harmonious. — Dancing. — Cards. — Field Sports. — Particular 
 Trades and Professions. — Perfect enjoyment in this life com- 
 patible with perfect enjoyment in the next. — Ecclesiastical 
 Imposts. — Oaths. — They are conservative of Truth, in an 
 imperfect state of Society. — Biblical Criticism on this subject. 
 — Wars. — Aggressive Warfare unjustifiable: defensive 
 Warfare necessary. — It is the best assurance of Peace, in an 
 imperfect state of Society. — Importance of acknowledging 
 this Imperfection. — Illustration. — War will cease as Civili- 
 zation advances 133 
 
 VI. Sixth Cause.— Eepodiation of Ancient principles by 
 best Members. — Early Quaker Opinions about this Life. — 
 Barclay's Definition of " True Learning." — The best of 
 Modern Quakers have fraternized with the World : hence 
 their improvement : hence their " Disownment" by the rigid 
 Disciplinarians.— The good are good anywhere. — Knowledge 
 the basis of all true progress. — No religious advance with- 
 out it 212 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 VII. Seventh Cause. —Exclusive Eigiditt of Discipline, and 
 Non-proselttism. — Marriage. — Disownnients. — Mrs. Fry's 
 Opinion. — Various breaches of Discipline. — Retrospective 
 Disownment. — Did Christ disown ? or did he comfort and 
 gather in ? — Non-proselytism — If Quakerism is right, it is 
 worth while to proselytize. — Tact. — Illustratious. — Expan- 
 siveness of best Quakers an Educement from themselves. — 
 Mrs. Opie : Converted by good men and good women, and 
 not by a bad Creed 221 
 
 VIII. Eighth Cause. — Sense of Inconsistency between mate- 
 rial PROSPERITY AND LOFTY SPIRITUAL PRETENSIONS INDUCING 
 
 defection of best Friends. — Money-getting spirit of 
 Quakers. — Assumed indifference to Riches.— Accumulation 
 of Wealth for its own sake demoralizing. — For the sake of 
 dispensing it to others, noble. — Embellishments of modern 
 Quaker Life. — Question of Quaker Poor. — General Improve- 
 ment in Civil and Religious Liberty 232 
 
 Recapitulation 241 
 
 Concluding Remaeks 
 
 251 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 44, line 17, for Fanatics, read Fanatics '.' 
 
 ,, 52, ,, 25, for laid read led. 
 
 „ 61, ,, 33. for Scriptual read Scriptural. 
 
 ,, 63, ,, 10, for drank read drunk. 
 
 „ 165, „ 23, for to read too. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH: 
 
 BEING 
 
 A HISTORICAL, RELIGIOUS, AND SOCIO-POLITICAL SKETCH 
 OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 
 
 It has been said, by no less an authority than Jeremy 
 Taylor, that " that is no good Religion whose principles 
 destroy any duty of Religion." If this be true (as it 
 unquestionably is), what imperfect pietists are the great 
 majority of mankind — by what fictitious creeds are we 
 surrounded ! And it is somewhat singular that the form 
 of Religion most obnoxious to this duty-destroying charge, 
 is the one which, of all others, has had the highest 
 theoretical aspirations, and proposed to itself what it has 
 believed to be the purest form of Christian discipline. 
 Happily, however, as the generations roll on, we are 
 becoming more impressed with the fact that a religious 
 system, to be enduring, must be endowed with (what 
 Quakerism has peculiarly lacked) the gifts of " length, and 
 breadth, and depth." Without these it is unable to fulfil 
 its moral and social obligations to those by whom it 
 is outwardly sustained and nurtured. It must have the 
 power to expand — there must be nothing mean or narrow 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 about it — in other words, it must have sympathy. A mere 
 "meditative insulation," be it never so pure and well- 
 intentioned, is a feeble impassivity, which cannot reach the 
 affections, cannot enlist the loves, and therefore cannot 
 enlarge the hearts, of any people. A system of perpetual 
 introversion is a perpetual draining of a barren soil, 
 without adding thereto the manifold helps which can 
 enrich and fertilize. It is a repudiation of the very 
 means which have been placed at our disposal for carrying 
 on the mighty warfare against " the world, the flesh, and 
 the devil." For to withdraw from the world is, not to 
 use it, and, therefore, to abuse it, by denying ourselves the 
 legitimate experiences which are to fit us for another life, 
 and test our capacity for a larger and more extended 
 communion in heaven. To shrink from a careful and 
 well-regulated exercise of our natural impulses, is prac- 
 tically to deny the usefulness of the gifts of an all-wise 
 Creator. To run away from the devil, and constantly be 
 looking round every corner to see if he is coming, is not 
 to "fight manfully against" him. It is rather the surest 
 means of exposing to him our cowardice, and therefore 
 giving to him the best opportunit}^ of a successful onslaught 
 upon our weaknesses ; whereas he is alone to be encoun- 
 tered by confronting him boldly, and overpowering him 
 by the combined influences of our intellectual, our moral, 
 and our spiritual natures. 
 
 Let us consider for awhile what claims the thing called 
 Quakerism has to our respect and sympathy, and how 
 obvious are the reasons why it must eventually perish, in 
 this country, and be of the things dead and buried. 
 
 Is the purest type of this eccentric creed so ideal and 
 unsubstantial as to be unadapted to the requirements of 
 the world ? Or is that a correct definition of it given by 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 3 
 
 one of its apologists — though not a Quaker himself — when 
 he terms it " an attempt, under the Divine influence, at 
 practical Christianity, as far as it can be carried" ?* I think 
 that this is not a true definition, and that it would be 
 more appropriate to term Quakerism an attempt, under 
 misapprehensive views of D ivine grace and government, at 
 practical Christianity, further than it can be earned. 
 Which, in* point of fact, is tantamount to saying, that it 
 is not practical but theoretical Christianity, fitted only for 
 " angels or ghosts," in a less turbulent state of existence 
 than that in which we have been placed by Almighty 
 Wisdom, and in no sense adapted to the manifold wants 
 and weaknesses of mortality. 
 
 And yet — Heaven knows — the early years of this great 
 religious movement of the seventeenth century were of 
 themselves sufficiently turbulent, and constituted such a 
 strange compound of wild fanaticism, absolute insanity, 
 and undoubted Christian zeal, as the world has rarely 
 witnessed. 
 
 It will be impossible to form any correct estimate of 
 the Society of Friends — of its present position, its 
 admitted decadence, and the prospect of its eventual 
 dissolution — unless we give some detail of its antecedents, 
 and of its first Apostle and Founder. 
 
 Quakerism, then, is the story of little more than two 
 centuries. It inaugurated its eventful career by an active 
 aggression upon the recognized rights of man, and the 
 conventional usages of society. Claiming for its disciples 
 liberty of conscience, and freedom of speech and manner, 
 it yet denied that liberty to others, by boldly proclaiming 
 
 * Portraiture of Quakerism, by Thomas Clarkson, M.A. Vol. i. 
 p. 4. London, 1805. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 the advent of a new Messiah, and the falsity of all existing 
 religions.* The Church of England, the Church of Rome, 
 and all Nonconformist bodies, were alike exposed to the 
 unmeasured abuse, and virulent denunciations, of an, igno- 
 rant fanatic. No one who reads dispassionately the history 
 of George Fox, as recorded in his own Journal (which Sir 
 James Mackintosh said was one of the most wonderful 
 books in the world), can doubt either the ignorance or the 
 fanaticism of his early years, any more than he can doubt 
 the excellence of Fox's moral life, or the self-denial which 
 he habitually practised. 
 
 It will be my endeavour to present the first phases of 
 this man's faith in a different aspect to that under which 
 they have usually been contemplated ; appealing to our 
 increased knowledge of psychology, as a justification of the 
 opinions advanced, from a study of Fox's recorded symptoms. 
 
 I have no hesitation then in stating boldly, that this 
 first apostle, and unnecessary martyr, of the Society of 
 Friends was suffmng during the first few years of his 
 " spiritual call," from what is termed by alienist physicians 
 Reliyious Melancholia, with delusions, and occasional pa- 
 roxysms of maniacal excitement. I appeal, I repeat, to our 
 increased knowledge of symptoms, to Fox's own record of 
 his acts and feelinys, and to the opinion of those who 
 were brought in contact with him, in order to justify my 
 conviction. It may be a novel view to take of a character 
 which has been shrouded in the starched veneration of 
 
 * Fox says : " Then I went to an alehouse, to which many 
 resorted betwixt the time of their morning and afternoon preach- 
 ings ; and had a great deal of reasoning with the people, declaring 
 to them that God was come to teach his people himself, and to 
 bring them off from all false teachers," &c. — Fox's Journal, third 
 edit., 4to, by William Penn. London, 1765. p. 70. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH 
 
 5 
 
 two centuries.* But it is assuredly a veracious one ; and 
 I am certain that there is no lunatic asylum in the United 
 Kingdom, containing a fair proportion of cases of recent 
 insanity, where you might not find unhappy individuals 
 labouring under symptoms precisely analogous to those of 
 the first founder of Quakerism. And I am equally positive 
 that could this man live again, in this nineteenth century, 
 and make again the same exhibitions to the world, he 
 would immediately be brought within the jurisdiction of 
 the Lunacy Commissioners, and find, under their direction, 
 a peaceful temporary home in Bethlem or St. Luke's. 
 
 It had been well for society had our hospitals for the 
 insane been then what they are now, places for the cure — 
 embracing every kind of moral, material, and spiritual 
 comfort — rather than the punishment, of insanity. Fox 
 would then have returned to the world, after a few 
 months' judicious treatment, a sober well-conducted citi- 
 zen; and we should have been spared the spectacle of 
 exhibitions (as I shall presently show) of the most shame- 
 less character ; and, in later times, of that which is far 
 more to be grieved at — a corporate Society, which has 
 numbered many excellent individuals in its ranks, and 
 strenuously endeavoured to bear witness to the Truth, 
 absolutely tumbling to pieces, dying from complete inani- 
 tion, under our very eyes. The expression of this opinion 
 is compatible with the largest respect for Fox's zeal and 
 earnestness, and for the self-denying excellence of his life. 
 But I could no more bring myself to believe, as many have 
 believed, that this man was specially raised up by God for 
 
 * It is true that Fox himself frequently said the people took him 
 for a madman ; and William Penn records the same fact. But 
 " the fellow's mad," is a conventional mode of expressing ourselves 
 about all persistent extravagances of speech and manner. 
 
6 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 religious purposes, than I could entertain the thought 
 that Mr. Commissioner Yeh has been sent by the same 
 Providence (a correlative of the former admission) to 
 destroy 70,000 of his Chinese fellow-subjects * 
 
 George Fox was born in Leicestershire, in the month 
 called July, in the year 1624, his father being a weaver. 
 It is recorded that he was " early endued with a gravity 
 and stayedness of mind," and impressed with the " wan- 
 tonness" of human nature. A pot of beer, he says, was the 
 immediate cause of his first " convincement." He declined 
 drinking toasts with his companions, a refusal which they 
 resented by making him pay for the entire company : 
 whereupon be left them and returned home, "very serious." 
 " But he did not go to bed that night, but prayed 
 and cryed earnestly to the Lord ; and it seemed to him 
 that his supplications were answered after this manner: 
 ' Thou seest how young people go together into vanity, 
 and old people into the earth ; therefore thou must forsake 
 all both young and old, and be as a stranger to them.' 
 This, which he took to be a Divine Admonition, made such a 
 powerful impression upon him, that he resolved to break off 
 all familiar fellowship and conversation with young and old, 
 and even to leave his relations, and live a separate and 
 retired life." Thus he acted, and he spent his time 
 
 * This monster is reported, during the brief period of his vice- 
 royalty, to have tortured, and put to death by every kind of bar- 
 barity, the above number of human creatures. 
 
 " The ' early Friends,' as well as their successors in religious pro- 
 fession, have always assuredly believed that G. Fox was an instru- 
 ment chosen of God, and raised up by his holy aid, to revive afresh, 
 in some degree, that spirituality of the Christian religion, which by 
 the degeneracy of a lapsed and bewildered church had been almost 
 lost, and buried in the rubbish of superstition." — Quakerism Un- 
 masked, by Amicus, p. 67. York, 1839. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 7 
 
 " almost in despair,* and in mighty trouble]' reading his 
 Bible incessantly , and " walking solitarily to wait upon the 
 Lord." " He continued a long while in this condition, and 
 in this miserable state vient to London, in hopes of finding 
 some relief among the great professors of that city." But 
 they were " darkened in their understandings," and he 
 left and went to Coventry, where he refused, though 
 sorely tempted, to enlist as a soldier under the Protector ; 
 and he " took a room for awhile at a professor's house." 
 After some time he went into his own country again, and 
 was there about a year, " in great sorrow and trouble, and 
 walking many nights by himself." Then he went to a priest 
 in Warwickshire, and reasoned with him about the ground of 
 despair and temptation ; but the priest, being altogether 
 ignorant of George's condition, " bid him take tobacco and 
 sing psalms. But George signified that he was no lover of 
 tobacco, and as for psalms, he was not in a state to sing." 
 Hence he went away in sorrow " worse than he was 
 when he came, seeing he found none that could reach his 
 condition." After this he went to one Macham, a priest 
 of high account ; and he, no more skilful than the others, 
 " was for giving George some physick and for bleeding him; 
 
 * It will be seen that the morbid state of feeling which we term 
 Despair (appropriately designated by a modern author " the para- 
 lysis of the soul") was, according to Fox's own showing, the cause 
 of his and Muggletou's first " enlightenment." This Muggleton, it 
 should be observed, was a wild fanatical blasphemer, who had after- 
 wards many followers, who bore his euphonious name. He pro- 
 claimed himself the Judge of the world, sent to pass sentence of 
 damnation upon all men. 
 
 " They were so deeply seized with despair," says Eev. C. Leslie, 
 " that, like the possessed man in the Gospel, they forsook all human 
 conversation, and retired into deserts, and solitary places, where 
 they spent whole days and nights aloue." — The Snake in the Grass, 
 p. 331. London, 1698. 
 
8 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 but they could not get one drop of blood from him, either in 
 the arms or the head, his body being as it were dried up 
 with sorrow grief and trouble, which were so great upon 
 him, that he coidd have wished never to have been born, to 
 behold the vanity and ivickedness of men; or that he had 
 been born blind, so that he might never have seen it, or deaf 
 that he might never have heard vain or wicked words, or the 
 Lord's name blasphemed." In 1646, .is he was walking on 
 a First-day morning, "it tvas discovered to his understanding 
 that to be bred at Oxford and Cambridge was not enough to 
 make a man to be a minister of Christ." " He took this to 
 be a Divine revelation, and herein admired the goodness of 
 the Lord." Now it opened to him, that God who made the 
 world did not dwell in churches made with hands, and he 
 left off congregational worship, preferring to read the Scrip- 
 tures by himself in the fields and orchards, "seeking to be 
 edified in solitariness." Soon afterwards he met with some 
 frantic females, who had embraced a doctrine then preva- 
 lent — that women had no souls ; and he commenced his 
 teaching in a most orthodox manner, try telling them that 
 they were wrong, for the Virgin Mary had said, " My soul 
 doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in 
 God my Saviour." Meeting with some " Dreamers," he 
 affirmed that there were three kinds of dreams : Multi- 
 plicity -of -business dreams ; whisperings-of- Satan dreams ; 
 and whisperings-of-God to man dreams. About this time, 
 " he felt some drawings to go into Derbyshire."* "But 
 
 * Three years subsequent to this period, during his imprisonment 
 in the capital of that county, he was "under great exercise and 
 trouble of spirit because of its wickedness," and he penned a woeful 
 lamentation, from which the following is an extract : " O, Darby ! as 
 the waters run away when the floodgates are up, so doth the visita- 
 tion of God's love pass away from thee, 0 Darby ! 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 9 
 
 his troubles and temptations still continued, and he fasted 
 much, and walked often abroad in solitary places, taking his 
 Bible with him, and sitting in hollow trees, and lonesome 
 places, until nightfall ; and frequently in the night he walked 
 mournfully about, being surrounded with many sorrows, in 
 the times of the first workings of the Lord in him." Fox 
 was clothed in leather, for the simplicity of that dress, and 
 partly because it was strong, and would want no mending. 
 In 1647 he lost a friend and coadjutor, named Brown, 
 after the burial of whom Fox fell into such a condition that 
 " he not only looked like a dead body, but unto many that 
 came to see him he looked as if he had been dead really." 
 His visions were constantly of " Satan," an " Ocean of 
 darkness/' zEgypt, Babylon, Sodom, and the grave; which, 
 being interpreted by the fanatics about him, simply meant 
 that he had a " discerning spirit." 
 
 In 1648, it should be added, " the virtues of the creatures 
 were also opened to him ; so that he began to deliberate 
 whether he should practise phy sick for the good of mankind;" 
 and " the Lord forbade him to put off his hat to any men 
 high or low, and he was required to ' thee' and ' thou' every 
 man and woman, without distinction."* But at length 
 
 0 Darby ! thy professing and preaching stinks before the Lord. 
 
 Thy women with stretehed-forth necks and wanton 
 
 eyes, &c, &c O the deceit that is within thee ! It 
 
 doth even break my heart to see how God is dishonoured in thee 
 0 Darby !" — Journal, p. 46. 
 
 * Fox records this year : " As I was sitting at a Friend's house 
 in Nottinghamshire, / saw there was a great crack to go throughout 
 the earth, and a great smoke to go as the crack went ; and after the 
 crack there should be a great shaking. This was the earth in people's 
 hearts which was to be shaken before the seed of God was raised out of 
 the earth. And it was so ; for the Lord's power began to shake 
 them, aud great meetings we began to have," &c. — Journal, p. 13. 
 
10 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 " his sorrows and troubles began to wear off, and tears of 
 joy dropped from him, so that he could have wept night and 
 day with tears of joy and brokenness of heart. Still he was 
 in a manner constantly quite clouded," haunted by visions, 
 impressed with " the terrors of the Lord," and the fearful 
 nature of His judgments ; and this state of things more or 
 less obtained during Fox's entire subsequent career.* 
 
 * Fox's Journal. The History of the Rise and Progress of the 
 Christian People called Quakers, by William Sewel. 4to. London,1722. 
 
 Fox's illusions and hallucinations were most remarkable. He 
 frequently saw " the sword of the Lord ;" at another time " I had a 
 vision of a desperate creature that was coming to destroy me, but I 
 got victoi-y over it." — (Journal, p. 250.) Again : " But being at 
 Bandon there appeared to me in a vision a very ugly-visaged man, 
 of a black and dark look. My spirit struck at him in the power of 
 God, and it seems to me that I rode over him with my horse, and 
 my horse set his foot on the side of his face. When I came down in 
 the morning I told a friend the command of the Lord was to ride 
 through Cork," &c. 
 
 At another time he beheld " a bear and two great mastiff dogs." 
 — (Journal p. 407.) " I met Oliver Cromwell riding into Hampton 
 Court Park, and before I came to him, as he rode at the head of his 
 Life-guard, I saw and felt a waft, or apparition of death, go forth 
 against him ; and when I came to him he looked like a dead man." 
 — (Journal, p. 282.) 
 
 Fox's symptoms are very analogous to those of Mahomet, and hun- 
 dreds of other religious fanatics, who have deemed themselves specially 
 raised up by God for His peculiar service. Mahomet was constantly 
 subject to dreams, and trances, and ecstacies. He would lie upon 
 the ground in a half-senseless state. He heard voices calling upon 
 him, and he swooned away in a " flood of light of intolerable splen- 
 dour," as the angel announced to him, " Oh, Mahomet, of a verity 
 thou art the prophet of God ! and I am his angel Gabriel." 
 
 " Dr. Gustav Weil, in a note to Mohammed de Prophet, discusses 
 the question of Mahomet's being subject to attacks of epilepsy ; 
 which has generally been represented as a slander of his enemies 
 and of Christian writers. It appears, however, to have been 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 11 
 
 I have dwelt thus at length upon the early years of 
 Fox's " convincement," in order to establish clearly to 
 general apprehension, the charge which I make against 
 this most miserable and deluded of men. He that runs 
 may read, and satisfy himself that there is nothing unrea- 
 sonable in the advancement of this charge. It may be as 
 well to give another striking instance of Fox's hallucina- 
 
 asserted by some of the oldest Moslem biographers, and given on 
 the authority of persons about him. He would be seized, they said, 
 with violent trembling, followed by a kind of swoon, or rather con- 
 vulsion, during which perspiration would stream from his forehead 
 in the coldest weather ; he would lie with his eyes closed, foaming 
 at the mouth, and bellowing like a young camel. Ayesha, one of 
 his wives, and Zeid, one of his disciples, are among the persons 
 cited as testifying to that effect. They considered him at such 
 times as under the influence of a revelation. He had such attacks, 
 however, in Mecca, before the Koran was revealed to him. Cadijah 
 feared that he was possessed by evil spirits, and would have called 
 in the aid of a conjuror to exorcise him, but he forbade her. He 
 did not like that any one should see him during these paroxysms. 
 His visions, however, were not always preceded by such attacks. 
 Hareth Ibn Haschem once asked him in what manner the revelations 
 were made. 'Often,' he replied, 'the angel appears to me in a 
 human form and speaks to me. Sometimes I hear sounds like the 
 tinkling of a bell. [A ringing in the ears is a symptom of epilepsy ; 
 and indeed Mahomet's attacks are accurate and truthful pictures of 
 that malady.] When the individual angel has departed I am pos- 
 sessed of what he has revealed.' Some of his revelations he professed 
 to receive direct from God, others in dreams ; for the dreams of pro- 
 phets, he used to say, are revelations." — The Life of Mahomet, by 
 Washington Irving. Note to chapter VI. 
 
 I think it is impossible to read the Life of the great and good 
 Edward Irving, without coming to the conclusion that an incessant 
 pondering upon the deep mysteries of religion, and a desire to know 
 more than it will ever be permitted to us to know, in our present 
 imperfect state, produced that sad mental deterioration which 
 preceded the close of his eventful career. 
 
12 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 tions. " So I went up and down," he says in his Journal, 
 "the streets (of Lichfield), and into the market, crying 
 with a loud voice, ' Woe to the hloody city of Lichfield ! ' 
 As I went thus crying through the streets there seemed to 
 me a channel of blood running down the streets, and the 
 market appeared a pool of blood. When I had declared 
 what was upon me, and felt myself clear, I went out of 
 the town in peace," &c. &c. " After this, a deep concern 
 came upon me, for what reason I could be sent to cry 
 against that city, and call it a bloody city. But afterwards 
 I came to understand, that in the Emperor Dioclesian's 
 time a thousand Christians were martyred in Lichfield. 
 So I was to go without my shoes through the channel of 
 their blood, and into the pool of their blood in the market 
 place, that I might raise a memorial of the blood of those 
 martyrs, which had been shed about one thousand years 
 before, and lay cold in the streets. 1 " 1 * 
 
 A modern author, alluding to this and other extrava- 
 gancies of the first Quaker apostle, mildly says : " It is 
 evident, however, that George Fox, like many of his con- 
 temporaries, partook largely of the enthusiastic feelings of 
 the age, and that his mind, at the time, must have been 
 under the influence of strong excitement; but, as he was 
 an extraordinary religious character, and conceived himself 
 to be especially called to fulfil an important mission, the 
 safest conclusion is, that this act might have been required 
 of him as a test of his faith and obedience !" f 
 
 I do not hesitate to avow, that as far as I can read early 
 Quaker history by the light of psychology, nearly all the 
 perversions to Fox's creed were instances of a nervous and 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. 49. 
 
 t A popular Life of George Fox, by Josiah Marsh, p. 67. London, 
 1847. 
 
A FALLEX FAITH. 
 
 13 
 
 too highly exalted sensibility, the alternations of which 
 are well known to be undue depression and despair. What 
 can be more frightful, or more morbid, for instance, than 
 the following picture ? — " My mind seemed separated from 
 my body, plunged into utter darkness, and towards the 
 North or place of the North star; and being in perfect 
 despair of returning any more, eternal condemnation 
 appeared to inclose and surround me on every side, as in 
 the centre of the horrible pit ; never, never to see redemp- 
 tion thence, or the face of Him in mercy whom I had sought 
 with all my soul."* 
 
 But we return briefly to George Fox. His aggressions 
 upon the conventionalisms, his violations of the amenities, 
 of society ; his belief in his own infallibility, and in the 
 special prompting of the Holy Spirit for every extravagance 
 which suggested itself to his delusional mind ; the fierce de- 
 nunciations of his wrath against every creed, and especially 
 the clergy of the Established Church, — that " scabby flock 
 of hirelings," as he politely called them ; the general wild- 
 ness of a look and bearing, which the observers of that 
 day affirm to have "frightened people into belief w f — all 
 these things brought him into frequent contact with the 
 authorities legalized for the preservation of order, and the 
 maintenance of peace. " He went into churches/' says the 
 biographer of William Penn, " and disturbed the service. 
 
 * Journal of the Life of Thomas Story, p. 13. 
 
 t The Rev. C. Leslie, who did battle manfully against Quakerism 
 in his day, tells us, " that the origin of the Quakers was a company 
 of poor ignorant country boys and women, journeymen, and maid- 
 servants, tailors, weavers, &c, &c, who, breaking loose from their 
 masters and mistresses, ran a 7 - eligion hunting, as an easier trade, 
 and of more prospect of gain, from the encouragement given them by 
 the Act of Toleration in 1649-50." 
 
14 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 In the midst of a sermon he would stand up and cry to 
 the minister : ' This is not true gospel ; come down, thou 
 deceiver ! ' Brought before the magistrates he refused to 
 take off his hat, pleading a direct command from God, not 
 to uncover his head, or to make au obeisance to an equal ; 
 and defended his conduct in the church with a rudeness 
 and vehemence which, to men of education and refinement, 
 savoured of insanity. The disturber was beaten and 
 stoned by the rabble, pilloried, and imprisoned again and 
 again by the magistrates."* 
 
 Nor was this to be wondered at. Such conduct was not 
 of a kind to receive much consideration, or to claim im- 
 munity from penalties and persecutions — especially at the 
 time when Quakerism first sprang into notice. It is not 
 intended for a moment to contravene William Penn's 
 noble sentiment, that " Whoever else is right, the perse- 
 cutor must be wrong." Indeed I cannot express too 
 strongly the horror which I have of religious persecution, 
 or the belief that it springs directly from the devil. Fox 
 and his followers were undoubtedly the victims of it ; but 
 he himself has had a place assigned to him by history, in 
 the army of martyrs, to which he is not entitled. Any one 
 who chooses to try what the law can do, and what protec- 
 tion she can yield to her well-behaved subjects, has only 
 to set about doing what George Fox did under the influ- 
 ence of a wild enthusiasm. Both the law and the good 
 sense of the community, — through its tremendous wea- 
 pon the press — will teach him, that it is wiser, and more 
 religious likewise, to be a well-conducted citizen than an 
 extravagant pietist, or a narrow-minded and unsympa- 
 
 * William Penn, an Historical Bioyrapky, by W. Hepworth 
 Dixon. London, 1851. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 15 
 
 timing bigot. A dissenting minister at Belfast was taught 
 this not long since, when actuated, I doubt not, by the 
 best motives, though displaying the most intolerable igno- 
 rance of human nature and social responsibility, he thought 
 himself to be doing God service by risking a bloody riot, 
 for the sake of (what was termed) a religious principle. 
 There is an ecclesiastic in St. George's in the East now, 
 rousing the entire parish, by ignoring the feelings, and 
 estranging the sympathies, of his people, for the sake of a 
 "miserable and childish" phylactery. 
 
 But there was no bound to Fox's labour, anymore than 
 there was to his intolerant and foul-mouthed language. 
 He worked night and day ; he was scarcely ever at rest ; 
 and his entire journal seems to bear evidence that he 
 actually exulted in persecution. From prison to prison, 
 from city to city, from England to Ireland, from Ireland 
 to America, from America to Holland, this man went 
 rejoicing, and bearing evidence to what he believed to be 
 the truth. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how he found time to 
 compose the various exhortations and epistles, and warn- 
 ings, and doctrinal essays, which he has bequeathed to a 
 Friendly posterity, and which constitute about the most 
 extraordinary compound that ever emanated from a single 
 pen. Nor is it easy to conceive how an illiterate and 
 uneducated man, who, according to cotemporary testimony, 
 could neither write grammatically nor spell decently,* 
 
 * Mr. Leslie says : "The handwriting of George Fox, for I have seen 
 it, is as bad as his spelling ; both equal to his sense and learning." 
 
 Fox's will, written in his own hand, is quite unique, and would 
 seem to show that some one else must have penned his theological 
 outpourings. The following are a few extracts : " S. Meade shall 
 have my magnifing glas, and the torkell shell com and cace." " And 
 
 / 
 
16 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 should have left for future generations some letters 
 which are stamped with true Christian meekness, and 
 bear quite an apostolic character. The greater part, 
 however, of. his writings, as those of his immediate fol- 
 lowers, are either abusive tirades, or pompous paraphras- 
 ings of the Old and New Testaments — the former largely 
 predominating. Nor was the learned author of the Apo- 
 logy exempt from this bombastic verbiage. It was after 
 this style with every Quaker who put his pen to paper, or 
 uttered oral prophesyings : "Howl, ye great ones, for the 
 plagues are pouring out upon you ! Howl, ye great ones, 
 for recompense and vengeance is coming upon you." Or 
 a more subdued and colloquial type was — " In Him sit 
 down, who is above the foxes in their holes, and the fowls 
 of the air in their nests. I say, sit down in Christ."* 
 
 But the time drew near for departure to the "better 
 country." Trials, and persecutions, and imprisonments, 
 could not last for ever ; and they had visibly told upon a 
 frame originally weak and feeble. It must be confessed 
 that Fox's exemplary private life, and his self-denying 
 labours, and his uncompromising truthfulness, at last 
 inspired all parties with respect and wonder. 
 
 " Of the integrity of his own character, as a Christian, he 
 was so scrupulously tenacious, that when he might some- 
 times have been set at liberty by making trifling acknow- 
 
 Sary, thou give Sary Frickenfield half a gine for she hath been 
 sarvesable to me a honest carefull young woman." "And let Thomas 
 Docker that knoweth many of my epestles and writen bookes wh ich 
 he did wright for me com up to London to assist frends in sorting of 
 my Epeseles and other writings and give him a gine." He speaks 
 in it of "all his fisekall things" and "that thing that people do give 
 glisters with," &c. &c. 
 * Fox's Journal, p. 561. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 17 
 
 ledgments, he would make none, lest it should imply a 
 conviction that he had been confined for that which was 
 wrong."* William Penn describes his friend as possessing 
 the most awful and reverend frame he ever beheld. " His 
 presence expressed a religious majesty/ 1 As far as a tur- 
 bulent and obstructive citizen can be blameless, friends 
 and enemies concur in thinking George Fox was such. 
 Everything he did he believed himself inspired by God to 
 do. Hence, his sincerity was the measure of his mischief ; 
 and his mischief was the measure of his sincerity. He died 
 in 1690, at the age of 67. His last, or nearly his last, 
 words were : " Never heed. All is well. The seed or 
 power of God reigns over all, and over death itself. 
 Blessed be the Lord \ " 
 
 There is no doubt that the cause of Quakerism was 
 much strengthened by the accession to its ranks of " that 
 mythical rather than historical person" (as Lord Macaulay 
 names him), William Penn, " to describe whom is a task 
 which requires some courage." With a certain class of 
 religionists and politicians he has been the subject of the 
 most extravagant hero-worship. By another he has been 
 very differently treated. As is generally the case where 
 opinions on individual merit are so divided as to reach the 
 extremes of latitude, a medium course, between these 
 extremes, is most likely to be correct. He will serve our 
 purpose merely to illustrate, by comparison with Fox, the 
 position which we advance, that whatever may be the more 
 outrageous indiscretions of an educated mind, there is 
 certain to arrive to it, if it be not overbalanced, a time 
 when judgment will re-assert her supremacy. If it be ad- 
 mitted that Fox was ever perfectly sane, it will be admitted 
 
 * Portraiture of Quakerism, by Thomas Clarkson, M.A. Intro- 
 duction, p. xxx. 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 that he never displayed the least discretion, betrayed any 
 knowledge of character,* or much Christian sympathy 
 towards those who differed from himself. It was not so 
 with Penn. He lived to belie, by a more comprehensive 
 wisdom, and a more rational and useful life, the religious 
 extravagances of his earlier years. " Energetic as ever," 
 says his biographer, speaking of him in conjugal retire- 
 ment, after various imprisonments and persecutions, " in 
 all that concerned his belief, there are yet traces of a mild 
 and softening influence being at this time exercised over 
 the polemic from Rickmansworth. His rebuke became 
 milder, his form of abjuration somewhat less emphatic 
 and severe. He was evidently growing a wiser and more 
 useful man."f 
 
 He who had written : " Whilst the idle gormandizing 
 priests of England run away with £150,000 a year, under 
 pretence of God's ministers, no sort of people have been 
 so universally the very bane of soul and body of the uni- 
 verse, as that abominable tribe, for whom the theatre of 
 God's eternal vengeance is reserved to act their tragedy 
 upon "X — lived to record, in nobler language, a more 
 noble sentiment. " However differing I am from other 
 
 * He was wont, however, constantly to claim for himself a knowledge 
 of character, and a prophetic insight into the hearts of his followers. 
 There are numberless instances of this recorded in his Journal, 
 where he attributes to a supernatural power of introspection, what 
 may be explained by the most ordinary principles of daily observa- 
 tion. He says (p. 99) " I cast my eye upon a woman, and discerned 
 an unclean spirit in her," &c. The same perceptive power shows me 
 many such an one whenever I walk down Eegent Street, and reflect 
 upon what is called " the great social evil." 
 
 t William Penn, an Historical Biography, by William Hepworth 
 Dixon, pp. 54, 55. 
 
 X The Guide Mistaken, by William Penn, p. 18. London, 1068. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 19 
 
 men circa sacra," he writes, "I know no religion that des- 
 troys courtesy, civility, and kindness." And again : " If 
 thou thinkest twice before thou speakest, thou wilt think 
 twice the better for it." And once more, in his Reason 
 against Railing, he says: "They that are angry for God, 
 passionate for Christ, may tell us they are true Christians, 
 if they will, but be sure they are no Christians of Christ's 
 making." He, too, who wrote : " Dissenters are an ill-bred 
 pedantic crew, the bane of reason, and pest of the world ; 
 the old incendiaries of mischief ; the best to be spared 
 of mankind, against whom the boiling vengeance of an 
 irritated God is ready to be poured out" &c. &c* — lived 
 to pen that memorable letter to Archbishop Tillotson, in 
 which he affirms : I can only say — for I cannot join in a 
 cry to ruin those I differ with — that I abhor two principles 
 in religion, and pity those who hold them — obedience on 
 mere authority, without conviction, and persecution of man 
 on pretence of serving God. I think Union is best where 
 the truth is clear; where not, Charity. I entirely agree 
 with Hooker, that a few words spoken in meekness, humi- 
 lity, and love, are worth whole volumes of controversy, 
 which commonly destroys Charity, the best part of Reli- 
 gion." I shall have occasion to refer more particularly to 
 some of Penn's opinions, at a subsequent part of this Essay. 
 
 Associated with Penn in his early labours, and in his 
 travels in England, Holland, and Germany, was the 
 famous author of the standard work of Quakerism, An 
 Apology for the true Christian Divinity, §c, a treatise 
 originally Avritten in Latin. Barclay was a really learned 
 man, as also an educated gentleman ; and the opinions 
 recorded by him in the Apology have been adopted by 
 
 * Quakerism, a New Nickname for Christianity, by William Penn, 
 p. 165. 
 
20 
 
 A FALLEN LATTIT. 
 
 orthodox Friends of every generation. He died at the 
 early age of forty-two.* 
 
 Having offered these preliminary observations upon the 
 three men, whom, I suppose, most largely influenced the 
 initiative of this strange theological system, let us proceed 
 to enquire how it is that neither Fox, nor Penn, nor 
 Barclay, nor the many earnest and good men upon whom 
 their mantle has fallen, down to the present day, have been 
 able, by individual or collective piety, to build a fabric 
 capable of surviving the rude shocks of Time. Let us see 
 how it has come to pass that an eclecticism of which Robert 
 Barclay predicted : " Neither the art, wisdom, nor violence 
 of men or devils, shall be able to quench that little spark 
 that hath appeared ; but it shall grow to the consuming of 
 whatever shall stand up to oppose it. Though we are few 
 in numbers in respect of others, and weak as to outward 
 strength — the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it"t — how 
 it has come to pass, I say, that a system for which was 
 foretold this career of augmenting grace, and undying 
 vigour, has been reduced to a state of powerless inertia, 
 and hopeless decadence. J Does the cause lie in an 
 
 * A modern Quaker, in a sensible little brochure recently pub- 
 lished, says, that Barclay's departure in the latter part of the 
 Apology, from the catholic ground of his earlier propositions, has 
 made it, " in spite of its great ability, nearly powerless for good 
 beyond the limits of the Society, and at the same time productive 
 of very great mischief within it." — The Principle of Ancient 
 Quakerism, Sfc, p. 26. 
 
 t Apology, p. 586. 8vo edit. London, 1703. 
 
 % The last Census of Eeligious Denominations in England and 
 "Wales, returns the number of Friends' Meeting Houses as 371, 
 against 413, fifty years previously. But there has been a great 
 falling off from the Society during the last eight years. 
 
 A recent traveller in Yorkshire says : " Whitby presents signs 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 21 
 
 increasing degeneracy of the Society's members ? Does 
 it lie in something wrong in the original constitution of 
 the So*ciety itself ? Are we to seek for it in the Rules of 
 Discipline and Government \ or in some extraneous but 
 appreciable influence ? 
 
 I venture to think that a combination of these causes 
 offers a satisfactory explanation of the decline of Quakerism ; 
 and that such combination may be redistributed into the 
 following divisional arrangement : 
 
 I. The visionary, unappreciable, and yet dangerous, 
 character, of the fundamental doctrine of the Society, 
 which gives precedence to the "Inward Testimony of the 
 Spirit," and not to the " Revealed Scriptures." 
 
 of a social phenomenon which is observable in other places, the 
 decline of Quakerism. I was invited to look at the Mechanics' 
 Institute, and found it located in the Quakers' Meeting House. 
 The town was one of George Fox's strongholds, and a considerable 
 number of Quakers, including some of the leading families, remained 
 up to the last generation. Death and secession have since then 
 brought about the result above mentioned." — A Month in Yorkshire, 
 by Walter White, p. 133. London, 1858. 
 
 Again, speaking of Wensleydale, he says : " The Quakers who 
 were once numerous in the valley, have disappeared too." — Ibid. 
 p. 287. 
 
 "In the year 1800 it was computed that the members of the 
 Society of Friends in the whole of Great Britain, amounted to about 
 24,000. This includes Ireland, where a vigorous Society was formed 
 in 1668, which holds its own national yearly meeting in Dublin, 
 and sends representatives, since 1670, to the yearly meeting in 
 London." — Dictionary of Christian Churches and Sects, by Eev. J. 
 B. Marsden, M.A. New Edition, p. 452. 
 
 I believe that three or four years ago, the 24,000 had dwindled 
 down to considerably less than 17,000 ; and a rapid decrease is still 
 going on. The American Quakers number 120,000. 
 
22 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 II The rejection of an organized and paid Ministry ; 
 and the recognition of the Immediate Inspiration of 
 male and female Preachers, for the various occaslbns of 
 Devotional Assembling. 
 
 III. The unsatisfying and unsubstantial character of the 
 Society's form of worship. 
 
 IV. An absolute physical, mental, and moral deterio- 
 ration, arising from the combined effects of frequent 
 intermarriages, morbid " seriousness," and a too emotional 
 and introverting Religion. 
 
 V. The singularly obstructive character of the Society's 
 Socio-political relationship to the world — comprising the 
 questions of the Lawfidness of Oaths, of War, and of 
 Ecclesiastical Imposts ; the peculiarities of Dress, Lan- 
 guage, and Deportment ; the prohibition of Sports and 
 Amusements ; the non-recognition of Distinctive Social 
 Inequalities,* and the prohibitions placed upon Trade. 
 
 VI. A general recognition on the part of best Friends, 
 of the necessity of a higher Educational Standard, adapted 
 to the requirements and the progressive Spirit of the Age 
 — this recognition involving, as a matter of course, a repu- 
 diation of their " ancient principles," a fraternization with 
 the World, and a consequent separation from Themselves. 
 
 VII. The exclusive character of the Society, and the 
 system of disowning members for breach of Discipline ; 
 and its non-Proselytism. 
 
 * This proposition, perhaps, of social inequality, -will be disputed; 
 but such was the inevitable tendency of "Ancient Quakerism." 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 23 
 
 VIII. A growing conviction on the part of the most 
 educated and enlightened Quakers, that the notorious mate- 
 rial prosperity of the Society does not accord with its 
 exalted spiritual profession, though it does not absolutely 
 militate against the moral character of individual members. 
 
 But, before entering upon the discussion of these 
 headings, it may not be beside our purpose to observe, 
 that the character of this great " Religious Movement"" was 
 hardly such as to enlist the respect or sympathies of the 
 educated portion of the community. The vulgarity and 
 intemperate zeal of its Founder ; the wild fanaticism of his 
 frantic followers ; the turbulence and overbearing violence 
 of all who were impressed with the divine nature of Fox's 
 mission were of themselves sufficient to keep back from 
 the new Religion all refined and well-regulated individuals. 
 That which (upon cotemporary evidence) terrified many 
 weak ones into embracing the Quaker creed, bade the 
 stronger stand aloof from so strange, so unnatural, and so 
 unrighteous a convulsion. It seemed marvellous to them 
 that now, for the first time (according to the opinions of 
 these neophytic Friends), should come Truth, to startle an 
 ungodly generation. How unlike the Religion of the meek 
 and lowly Saviour, was this Religion of the leather-aproned 
 weaver's son ! " Is not the man," says the pious Baxter, 
 " either an infidel, and enemy to Christ, or stark mad with 
 pride, that can believe that Christ had no Church till now, 
 and that all the ministers of the Gospel for 1,600 years 
 were the ministers of the devil (as they say of us that 
 tread in their steps), and that we the Christians of that 
 1,600 years are damned (as now they dare denounce 
 against those that succeed them), and that God made the 
 world, and Christ died for it, with a purpose to save none 
 
24 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 but a few Quakers, that the world never knew till a few 
 years ago, or at least a few heretics that were their prede- 
 cessors of old ! "* 
 
 There is scarcely anything more extraordinary than the 
 conviction which has rested upon the minds of the Society 
 of Friends, that their origin was direct from God, who 
 specially raised up Fox for their establishment — for, in 
 fact (as they believed), the initiation of Christianity. But 
 surely we of these later times, who, by the light of reason, 
 by a larger knowledge of mental phenomena, by a more 
 extended acquaintance with the symptoms of emotional 
 disturbance and depraved moral feelings, are enabled to 
 decipher individual man, and societies of men, may ask of 
 the few remaining Friends who cling to an hereditary 
 Faith, to compare the language and temper of Fox and his 
 immediate disciples, with the language and temper of an 
 earlier Founder of Christian Verity, and more lowly dis- 
 ciples, who received their mission direct from the Son of 
 God. How could this later fruit have sprung from that 
 earlier tree ? Why should not the testimony of Mahomet 
 be as much relied upon as that of Fox ? Their physical 
 and mental symptoms of disease were somewhat analo- 
 gous ; their illusions and hallucinations were similar. And 
 the Eastern Prophet gave utterance to a more lowly senti- 
 ment, and yielded larger evidence of Christian humility, 
 than did the Western Cobbler, when he said, under the 
 strongest impress of his divine and prophetic character, 
 " Neither shall I enter into Paradise unless God cover me 
 with His mercy." What more charitable thing can we 
 say (and, indeed, what does the history of mankind more 
 clearly demonstrate ?), than that neither Fox nor Mahomet 
 
 Epistle prefixed to Baxter's Quakers' Catechism. 
 
A FALLEN FAITIX. 
 
 25 
 
 have been raised up by God for a special purpose ; but 
 that they have been permitted to exist (as other anomalies 
 are suffered to exist, and other scourges are perpetuated), 
 because it is no part of the divine and providential scheme 
 which everywhere embraces us, to interfere with the na- 
 tural development of even that which brings scandal upon 
 God's Divinity and God's Truth ? 
 
 We proceed now to the consideration of the separate 
 heads of that divisional arrangement which we have pre- 
 viously indicated. 
 
 I. The visionary, unappreciabh ', and yet dangerous, 
 character, of the f undamental doctrine of the Society, which 
 gives precedence to the " Inward Testimony of the Spirit," 
 and not to the " .Revealed Scriptures." 
 
 Quakers are of opinion that the Spirit of God is given 
 to every man, in varying kinds and degrees ; that this 
 Spirit can alone enable him to discern Divine Truth as 
 revealed in Scripture ; and that this inward guide or 
 monitor is the fountain-head from which Scripture has 
 proceeded, and is, therefore, superior to Scripture itself. 
 Barclay's words in the third proposition of his Apology 
 are : " Nevertheless, because they (the Scriptures) are 
 only a declaration of the Fountain, and not the Fountain 
 itself, therefore they are not to be esteemed the principal 
 ground of all truth and knowledge, nor yet the adequate 
 primary rule of faith and manners." 
 
 Which is really tantamount to saying : however highly we 
 may think of the Scriptures, and how great soever may be 
 the estimate which we have of their truth, it is compe- 
 tent for any person who is impressed with the idea that 
 God has gifted him with spiritual discernment, to supersede 
 the authority, and put any interpretation which may please 
 
26 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 him upon the letter, of Scripture. This, in fact, is what the 
 early Quakers — this is what George Fox in particular — did ; 
 and the belief gave rise to some of the most blasphemous 
 productions tbat ever issued from the pen of man. And it 
 will be necessary for me hereafter to cite a few instances, 
 in order to bear out the statement which I am making, 
 and show to those who are not familiar with the early 
 literature of the Society of Friends, the disreputable trash, 
 the coarse vulgarity, the profane dogmatizings, which can 
 claim a divine origin, in times of rampant fanaticism and 
 over-weening spiritual pride. Having stated, then, that 
 Quakers give precedence to the varying " witness of the 
 Spirit " over the written and unvarying record of God's 
 Word ; and that the former, in having existed prior to the 
 latter, should constitute the primary Rule and Standard 
 of Faith, we will state some of their other reasons for 
 maintaining this fundamental dogma of their creed. 
 They affirm (what is very true) that the Scriptures have 
 neither a verbal nor a collective perfection ; that many 
 are stated to have been lost, and there are uncertainties and 
 disputations as to those which have been handed down to 
 us. What one Christian Council has received another 
 has rejected. " Add to this, that none of the originals are 
 extant. And of the copies some have suffered by transcrip- 
 tion, others by translation, and others by wilful mutilation, 
 to support human notions of religion, so that there are 
 various readings of the same passage and various views of 
 the same thing." These things being so, we are convinced 
 that there is a purer antecedent Revelation, dwelling in 
 each man's own heart. That is the Light which lighteth 
 every man that cometh into the world. It is the inward 
 Testimony ; it is the Holy Spirit, and constitutes to its 
 individual possessor the standard and the gauge of Truth. 
 Now, without attempting to claim for Scripture a 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 27 
 
 greater importance than it is entitled to, by making it (as 
 many do, to their own great peril) a court of appeal in 
 matters which are far beyond the range of Theology, it is 
 obvious to what abuse the Sacred Volume may be exposed 
 by the admission of this doctrine of individual interpreta- 
 tion, without reference to the general capacity of the in- 
 dividual interpreter. If one will not hear the voice of 
 collective authority and tradition, at least let him give 
 some measure of heed to the light of collateral knowledge 
 and reason. But if there be no knowledge, because reason 
 has never been exercised, and the faculties have never been 
 educated, what wild fancies may not possess even the most 
 devout man who believes himself endowed from above by 
 the light of spiritual discernment ! What he sees to-day he 
 may not see to-morrow. The sacredness of the vision of 
 one hour, the testimony of the indwelling Spirit, may be 
 in the inverse ratio of the enthusiast's physical integrity ; 
 whilst in proportion to the healthiness of his animal 
 secretions may be his freedom from vitiated sentiments in 
 another. It is not to be believed that any amount of desire 
 for Truth, and knowledge of the " many things hard to be 
 understood " — that any amount of prayer or pious ejacu- 
 lation will secure to an utterly ignorant man the least 
 insight into what he craves to understand, unless he avails 
 himself of the many means placed at his disposal for 
 enlarging his mental capacity, and thereby extending, in 
 one sense, the limits of his faith. How prone are even the 
 educated "over-righteous'' to pray for "more grace," whilst 
 they have a large stock in hand of available material, which 
 they are too indolent to turn to a practical account, though 
 they might pave therewith a beautiful highway on which 
 Grace could run her chariot-wheels. Lord Palmerston got 
 the credit of being profane, when he told the Edinburgh peti- 
 
28 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 tiouers for a " Form of national prayer" for keeping away the 
 cholera, that they had better attend to their drainage, and 
 improve the general character of their habits and their 
 dwellings. But the Prime Minister was right in urging them 
 not to leave " Providence to settle that" (to adopt a happy 
 expression of Miss Martineau) which they had abundant 
 power to settle for themselves. And so is he right who tells 
 an ignorant but devotional boor that he is not likely to know 
 anything of the parables of the Gospel, or the perplexing 
 subtleties of the Epistles, unless some man explain them. 
 Not his "religious experiences/' nor his moral perceptions, 
 nor his intellectual endowments, are sufficient to justify his 
 becoming his own interpreter. For, literally, he has none of 
 these things. And yet hundreds of the illiterate and vulgar- 
 minded have claimed this power, and by its fanatical exer- 
 cise have brought the greatest scandal upon Religion, and 
 especially upon the creed of the gentle enthusiasts whose 
 dilapidated spiritual fortunes we are now considering. 
 
 The history of all Fanaticism boldly negatives the idea 
 of an " Inward Light" sufficient for the purposes of con- 
 troversial teaching ; and, above all, indicates that while 
 the most beautiful feature of Christ's Gospel is Charity, 
 the most repulsive, and, at the same time, the most 
 prominent, features of Fanaticism are self-confidence and 
 spiritual pride.* 
 
 * It will be admitted that there is more of spiritual pride than 
 charity in the following choice expressions gleaned from Fox's own 
 writings : — 
 
 It should be remembered that he generally began his epistles : 
 " The Word of the Lord to you," &c, and that the annexed terms 
 were usually applied to the Protestant clergy, against whom he 
 had the most virulent antipathy. "Conjurors," " thieves," " robbers," 
 *' Antichrists," " witches," " devils," " scarlet-coloured beasts," 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 29 
 
 "Theology/" says the great Hooker, "what is it hut the 
 science of things divine ? What science can be attained 
 unto without help of natural discourse and reason?" 
 And that brightest ornament of Friends, Joseph John 
 Gurney himself says : " Certain it is that much of our 
 dissatisfaction on religious points, much of our impious 
 doubting, is owing to our not sufficiently yielding up our 
 reason and our souls to the will of God.'' And Jeremy 
 Taylor writes : " It is a strange boldness and pertness of 
 spirit, so to trust every fancy of my own, as to put the 
 greatest interest upon it ; and so to be in love with every 
 opinion and trifling conceit, as to value it beyond the 
 peace of the Church, and the wiser customs of the world, 
 or the laws and practices of a wise and well-instructed 
 community of men."* 
 
 But if it is not competent to this man, by reason of 
 his uneducated condition, to shape out for himself a 
 faith of individual interpretation ; it is equally competent 
 to another, who has carefully studied the letter of Holy 
 Writ, and whose general education, and acknowledged 
 
 "bloodhounds," "lizards," "moles," "greenheaded trumpeters," 
 " -wheelbarrows," " giincracks,' " whirlpools," " whirligigs," " moon- 
 calves," " tatterdemalions," "serpents," "vipers," " ministers of the 
 devil," " devils incarnate," " devil-driven dungy gods," &c, &c. 
 
 To T. Bushel, the Ranter, he said : " Repent, thou beast." — 
 Journal, p. 54. 
 
 Edward Burroughs was one of the most noted of the early 
 Quakers. He was termed "a chief-pillar of the Church," and "a 
 great breaker-up of stony hearts." His writings are full of abusive 
 language. The following is a specimen : " Thou (Philip Bennett, a 
 priest) art a wicked creature. Blackness of darkness is reserved 
 for thee. Thou art a serpent, and the curse of God is eternally 
 upon thee. Thou beast, to whom the plagues of God are due." 
 
 * Jeremy Taylor's Works, vol. xii., p. 73. 
 
30 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 powers, give him the right to exercise his reason, and 
 weigh the respective merits of the countless creeds which 
 have been elaborated from Scripture, to determine for 
 himself what is most required for the sustained health- 
 fulness of his moral and spiritual nature. We are so 
 constituted by God that, in things which are not clear 
 to demonstration, essentially different conclusions will be 
 drawn from the same premises, and absolutely antagonistic 
 interpretations be put upon the same passages of Revela- 
 tion. No collective authority, no hoary tradition, will 
 convince some ; the minimum of authority and tradition 
 will convince others. And in each case, be it observed, 
 the belief is, after all, an exercise of private judgment. If 
 you believe the Church, and nominally distrust yourself, 
 you have actually trusted yourself to decide that the Church 
 is worthy of credit, and capable of truthful exposition. 
 If you reject the authority of the Church you are but 
 still exercising private judgment in deciding that the 
 Church is unworthy of being appealed to as an authority. 
 Having admitted this much, it is obvious that the strongest 
 and most reasonable conviction of a truth eliminated 
 from Scripture by one, may not admit of apprehension by 
 another. This fact influences and colours, not only the 
 minutire of creeds, but even the great and sublime Verity 
 upon which hangs the salvation of man. The doctrine of 
 the Atonement has to you a " wrath-appeasing" — to me a 
 k< reconciliatory" — character. Call it faithlessness — call it 
 what you will ; but it is a fact arising from those mental 
 idiosyncrasies with which it has pleased God to individ- 
 ually endow us. If I do not persist in pressing my opinions 
 upon you, it is due to me that you keep silence. I am as so- 
 licitous about the truth as yourself. There is a point beyond 
 which you have no right to go, for it should be remembered 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 31 
 
 (as Mr. Buckle eloquently expresses it) " that a creed which 
 is good for one man may not be good for another ; that 
 you dare not dogmatize on the most mj'sterious subjects, 
 tamper with tbe most sacred principles of the human heart, 
 and darken with its miserable superstitions those sublime 
 questions that no one should rudely touch, because they 
 are for each according to the measure of his own soul ; 
 because they lie in that unknown tract which separates the 
 finite from the infinite, and because they are as a secret 
 and individual covenant between man and his God." * 
 
 It is hard, indeed, as things really exist around us, and 
 as our faith is perplexed on every side, to steer the right 
 path through Scriptural difficulties, and through the 
 disjunctive teachings of the various Christian Churches. 
 We have no need to increase our embarrassments by 
 appealing to capricious emotions (which are more or less 
 indications of our weakness rather than our strength), as 
 peculiar manifestations of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 See what has come of this minute anatomizing of 
 revealed Truth. As men are prone to follow the bent of 
 their respective tastes, inherited or acquired, in the 
 selection of a particular profession, in the indulgence of 
 certain pursuits, or in adopting special courses of reading 
 and study; so they have been inclined, according to their 
 respective moral and intellectual organizations, to deal 
 with insulated passages of Holy Writ. One or other, or 
 sundry passages, harmonize with this man's preconceived 
 views (and, of course, what may be said of the individual, 
 may be said equally of the aggregate of individuals). 
 He dwells upon them constantly ; he twists them into 
 
 * History of Civilization in England, by Henry Thomas Buckle, 
 p. 469. Loudon, 1857. 
 
32 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 unreasonable and (by others) unappreciable relationships. 
 He forces them unduly, until the exuberance of their 
 growth starves and impedes the maturation of other 
 passages, of at least an equally comprehensive character.* 
 Believing in the plenary or verbal inspiration of the 
 absorbing passages, he is not able to recognize the fact, 
 that the various Scriptural writings are stamped in a 
 large measure with individualities of character, and the 
 general weakness incidental to the medium of humanity. 
 Who, for instance, cannot see in the writings of the Great 
 Apostle of the Gentiles that unclouded confidence which 
 is so often characteristic of sudden conversion ? — " for I 
 knov) whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is 
 able to keep that which I have committed unto him against 
 that day." 
 
 Truly there is no book requiring greater study, and more 
 freedom from prejudice in that study, whether you believe 
 (as many do, and thereby perplex themselves) that every 
 word is for eternal truth, and for eternal service ; or whether 
 
 * " On all questions relating to the alleged practical influence of 
 opinions, the rational enquiry plainly is — Not what seems the 
 tendency of single elements of the system ; but in what manner are 
 its various elements balanced and harmonized ? Who does not 
 know that effects are, in every case, whether physical or intellectual 
 as the combined causes which concur to produce them ? If at any 
 time certain ingredients of religious truth have been drawn apart 
 and greatly abused, to the injuries of the parties themselves, and 
 to the scandal of others, the fault is not in the inspired Book. The 
 sacred writers require nothing short of a submission to that com- 
 plete and duly-adjusted system of motives which they promulgate ; 
 and it would have been a virtual dereliction of their authority to 
 have made provision against the misuse of those single principles 
 which can produce no mischief so long as they are held in com- 
 bination."— Fanaticism, by Isaac Taylor, p. 321. London, 1853. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 33 
 
 you believe such a doctrine to be essentially injurious to 
 the spread of true religion. In " the volume of volumes" 
 are, indeed, many " things hard to be understood," which 
 have baffled millions ; as its truths of beautiful plainness 
 and touching simplicity have yielded consolation to millions, 
 who have gone out without fear into the great and untried 
 future. It has been so from its first revelation ; it is so now ; 
 it will be so to the end. The ^Ethiopian will not change 
 his skin, nor the leopard his spots. And so it has come to 
 pass, here in England — Christian England self-reputed to 
 be so much more Christian than other countries, we are 
 flooded with different sects, animated by that dangerous 
 gift — pious but untempered zeal, all of whom have a 
 special aptitude for advancing insulated texts, in support 
 of their respective theological dogmas. 
 
 Thus upon one or more passages have been founded a 
 belief in the Eternal Oneness of the Deity ; upon one or 
 more an acceptance of the Triune Godhead. Upon one or 
 more a belief in the Predestination by God of some men to 
 everlasting misery ; whilst there are not wapting those 
 which seem to enforce the doctrine of Universal Salvation. 
 Upon one or more is based a belief in the material Pre- 
 sence of our Lord's body and blood, in the sacrament of 
 his Communion. Upon the same is founded an acceptance 
 of the spiritual Presence only of the crucified Redeemer. 
 Upon the same, too, and others, is founded the doctrine 
 that this sacrament is merely a memorial rite, which it is 
 wise not altogether to neglect, but which ought in no way 
 to be associated with either the material or special spiritual 
 presence, in the Eucharistic Elements, of " the Great 
 Sufferer." Whilst the sect whose merits we are now dis- 
 cussing denies the necessity of any ritual participation 
 in bread and wine, at the same time fully apprehending 
 
 D 
 
34 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 the needfulness of spiritually supping with the Lord. 
 Upon one or more has been built the propriety of Com- 
 munity of goods and possessions, and the Universality of 
 the Spirit ; upon others a recognition of different Orders 
 in society, and differing degrees in wealth. By one or 
 more is acknowledged the notion of silent spiritual 
 " waiting," periodically accompanied by "groanings" 
 which can, as well as " groanings which cannot, be 
 uttered," and tremblings and quakings of a highly demon- 
 strative character. * 
 
 By others is made equal acknowledgment of uniform 
 soberness of speech and bearing, in prayer, in exposition, 
 and in praise, in our communions with the Eternal God. 
 Upon one or more has been founded an adoption of female 
 
 * " Sometimes the power of God. will break forth into a whole 
 meeting ; and there will be such an inward travail while each is 
 seeking to overcome the evil in themselves, that by the strong con- 
 trary workings of these opposite powers (like the going of two 
 contrary tides) every individual will be strongly exercised, as in a 
 day of battle ; and thereby trembling and motion of body will be 
 upon most, if not upon all : which, as the power of truth prevails 
 will from pangs and groans end with a sweet sound of thankfulness 
 and praise." — Barclays Apology, p. 359. " Those in their assemblies 
 that are taken with these quaking fits, fall suddenly down, as it were 
 in a swoon, as though they were in epilepsy, and lie grovelling on 
 the earth, struggling as it were for life, and sometimes more quietly, 
 as though they were departing. While the agony of their fits is on 
 them, their lips quiver, their flesh and joints tremble, their bellies 
 swell as though blown with wind ; they foam at the mouth, &c. 
 When the fit leaves them they roar out horribly, with a voice greater 
 than the voice of a man ; the noise is a fearful noise ; it is a very 
 horrid fearful noise, and greater sometimes than any bull can 
 make." — Brief Narrative of the Irreligion of the Northern Quakers, 
 by Francis Higgins, p. 15. The above is a perfect description of a 
 bad hysterical paroxysm, accompanied by the well-known globus 
 hystericus. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 35 
 
 loquaciousness as an article of creed, and a conviction of 
 female " ministerial giftings." There is not one of these 
 opinions which may not be more or less supported by 
 Scriptural insulations : and it is no exaggeration to say, 
 that by the disjunctive teaching of God's word, without 
 due reference to its entirety, and those facts about which 
 almost all Christians are agreed, have arisen those divi- 
 sional janglings, those numberless sects and creeds, which 
 have alike perplexed earlier and more immediate, as they 
 will be certain to perplex future, generations.* 
 
 Nor is this all. There have been thousands of men, 
 earnest, active, pious, sincere, ever solicitous to find that 
 "one Body and one Spirit" 1 which, discovered, would be 
 the type of perfect peace — men who have made the Scrip- 
 tures their chief study, with prayer, and humility, and 
 have yet been unable to build thereupon an enduring 
 fabric ; but, startled at last by conflicting opinions, by the 
 history of religious persecution, by the violence of religious 
 partizanship, and by the practical denials of Christ, mani- 
 fested by some who bear his sacred name, and who have 
 been reputed to b'e the peculiar depositaries of abundant 
 grace, have made shipwreck of their Faith, and ended by 
 rejecting all Revealed Religion. 
 
 How is all this to be remedied but by greater unifor- 
 mity of conduct, worthy of the teaching of the New Dis- 
 
 * " II n' y eut jamais aucune heresie pour si profane qu'elle fut, 
 qui ne se soit appuyue sur des paroles formelles de l'Escriture 
 saincte. C'est un pays de conqueste que la Bible ; une foreBt esgale- 
 ment ouverte aux larrons et aux buscherons ; une prerie cornme 
 aux faucheurs pour y trouver de l'herbe, aux cicoignes pour y 
 trouver des serpens, et aux asnes pour y trouver des chardons." — 
 Garasse, Doctrine Curieuse, p. 184 (quoted in Souther's Common- 
 place Book). 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 pensation, and by larger charity, and more conciliating 
 love ? How but by giving up this constant " doting about 
 questions, and strife of words?" How but by discovering 
 our individual " necessities before we ask," so as to 
 modify, in some sense, " our ignorance in asking ?" As 
 long as we are content to be mere Bibliolaters or dreamy 
 Spiritualists, overlooking and overleaping the practical 
 part of the Christian life, and are pleased to dogmatize 
 where it is given to none to dogmatize, mysticize our- 
 selves with what is sufficiently plain, and darken what is 
 already puzzling and obscure, God's word will be torn to 
 tatters, and God's people tossed upon a sea of doubt and 
 discord. 
 
 Can anything be conceived more prejudicial to Religion, 
 or moi'e hurtful to some of those minds which are alone 
 capable of embracing large and comprehensive truths, than 
 to be forced into the consideration of some wretched 
 dogma which need be of no importance to any one — not 
 in any sense necessary to his creed, and exercising no 
 influence whatever upon the practice of Christian prin- 
 ciples ? It is bad and dangerous enough to be reduced to 
 quibbling about " Consubstantiation " and " Transubstan- 
 tiation." But how miserably childish to be called upon 
 to view as solemn verities, indicated by the Holy Spirit, 
 trivial and incidental allusions made by men whose frailties 
 are as evident as their inspiration ! These are the foolish 
 and dangerous tools with which Quakers have been playing 
 for two centuries — " words without knowledge, by which 
 understanding hath been darkened." 
 
 What does it matter to me that " there was silence in 
 Heaven for half an hour"? or that "Job sat silent for 
 seven days"?* or that "Philip had four daughters winch 
 
 * These are two of the texts on which Quakers found the doc- 
 trine of silent worship. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 37 
 
 did prophesy" ?* or that " widows when they have begun 
 to wax wanton against Christ will marry"? But it 
 matters a great deal to me — for my all hangs upon it — 
 that " Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," 
 and that " God is Love." 
 
 Are not these Great Truths sufficient ? O yes ! And 
 having embraced them, " a good life" (to adopt the words 
 of Dr. Samuel Brown) "becomes the truest and most beau- 
 tiful Theology." 
 
 It is not more singular than it is inconsistent, that, con- 
 sidering the primary importance attached by Quakers to 
 the subordinate position of the Scriptures, as proceeding 
 from the Spirit of Truth, and not being the Spirit of 
 Truth itself, they are yet willing to acknowledge (in 
 Barclay's own words) " as a positive certain maxim, that 
 
 * This is one of the texts upon which they justify occasional pro- 
 phesying. The following is a fair specimen of the manner in which 
 they are wont to exercise this gift : it was delivered in Ireland by 
 one John Hall, a visitor there from England, and is worthy of Dr. 
 Camming. 
 
 " ' My friends, I am come in the dread and fear of the Great and 
 Almighty God, to proclaim the great and terrible day of the Lord 
 amongst you, that is coming, and is come, upon all sin and wicked- 
 ness. Haste to repentance, I beg it of you, lest the day come upon 
 you at unawares ; and remember that you are this day warned to 
 the salvation of God ; and whether you will hear, or whether you 
 will forbear, God will be clear of your blood. And unto this 1 am 
 concerned to add, that a terrible and grievous plague will God send 
 into this your land and nation, that shall sweep away thousands of its 
 inhabitants ; they shall lie dead in their houses, and dead in the 
 streets; there shall scarcely be a people living found willing to buru 
 them, their stench shall be so great. O, repent and turn from your 
 evil ways that God may show you mercy." The Rise and Progress 
 of the people called Quakers in Ireland, by Thomas Wight, and John 
 Rutty. 4th edit., p. 214. London, 1811. 
 
38 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 whatsoever any do, pretending to the Spirit, which is con- 
 trary to the Scriptures, be accounted and reckoned a 
 delusion of the devil."* This admission itself condemns 
 the entire early Quaker literature, and the monstrous 
 extravagances of Fox and his immediate followers. Nay, 
 out of Barclay's own mouth may Barclay himself be con- 
 demned. For if it is true that the fruits of the Spirit are 
 clearly defined to be " love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
 gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance/'' how 
 can the great Apologist reconcile therewith his own viru- 
 lent and intemperate language? Speaking of the clergy, 
 he says : " They are so glued to the love of money that 
 there is none like them in malice, rage, and cruelty. If 
 they be denied their hire they rage like drunken men, 
 fret, fume, and, as it were, go mad." " If thou owest 
 them ought and refusest to pay it, then nothing but war 
 will they thunder against thee, and they will send thee to 
 hell without mercy."t He calls the clergy also " Anti- 
 christian hirelings, full of rage and malice." And what 
 are we to say to the following, selected out of hundreds of 
 similar extracts which might be produced, if necessary, 
 from the early writings of Friends ? 
 
 " To the King and both houses of Parliament, thus saith, 
 the Lord : ' Meddle not with my people because of their 
 conscience to me, and banish them not out of the nation 
 because of their conscience ; for if ye do I will send my 
 plagues upon you, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.' 
 
 * And yet Barclay contradicts himself here, as in all his proposi- 
 tions ; for he says elsewhere : " The teachings of the Universnl Saving 
 Light are not necessarily to be subjected to the test of either the 
 outward testimony of Scripture, or the natural reason of man." — 
 Apology, p. 223. 
 
 t Apology, p. 339. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 39 
 
 Written in obedience to the Lord by his servant, George 
 Bishop. Bristol, the 25th of the 9th mo. 1664."* 
 
 " Such as differ from us differ from Christ. You all, 
 priests and teachers, who call yourselves ministers since 
 the days of the apostles, who inwardly are ravened from the 
 Spirit of God, are turning and have turned all people from 
 the light to the darkness ; and so have kept thousands and 
 millions of souls in damnation, and turning them and 
 keeping them in the path and way unto hell."f 
 
 " If ever you own the prophets, Christ, and the apostles, 
 you will own our writings, which are given forth by the 
 same spirit and power."J 
 
 " You might as well condemn the Scriptures to the fire 
 as our Queries. . . . You are answered from the Mouth of 
 the Lordr^ 
 
 Fox ends one of his epistles thus : " From him who is 
 translated into the kingdom of his dear Son, with all his 
 saints," &c. 
 
 " Quakers can discern who are saints, who are devils, 
 and who apostates, without speaking even a word. They 
 have the Word of God, Christ, which is eternal and infal- 
 lible, in their hearts, to judge persons and things." || 
 
 " So all the preachers for tythes and money, and the 
 takers and payers of tythes, be testified against in the 
 Lord's power and Spirit; and therefore in the power of 
 the Lord, maintain the war against the beasts." ^ 
 
 * Sewer s History of Quakers, p. 439. 
 
 t Great Mystery, by George Fox, p. 267. 
 
 % Answer to the Westmoreland Petition, by George Fox. p. 30. 
 
 § Truth's Defence, by George Fox, p. 104. 
 
 1 1 Great Mystery, by George Fox, p. 89. 
 
 IT Decretal Epistle against Tythes, by George Fox, 3rd mo. 1667. 
 
40 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 " Slay Baal ; Balaam must be slain. All the hirelings 
 must be turned out of the kingdom."* 
 
 " All Christendom hath talked long enough of Christ's 
 flesh and blood."f 
 
 The above are a few extracts from the writings of one, 
 to prove whose infallibility William Penn wrote (in his 
 Winding Sheet) 30 pages ; and of whom the same author 
 and Thomas Ellwood (vide Penn's Rise and Progress, &c., 
 and Ellwood's Testimony of George Fox, prefixed to the 
 Journal of the latter) recorded : " He was the first and 
 chief elder in this age; a man though not of elegant 
 speech, or learned after the way of this world, yet endued 
 with a wonderful depth in Divine wisdom." " His matter 
 was very profound." " He was a discerner of other men's 
 spirits, and very much a master of his own ; he had an 
 extraordinary gift in opening the Scriptures, but above all 
 he excelled in prayer." " He was sound in judgment, able 
 and ready in giving, discreet in keeping counsel; of an 
 innocent life; no busybody, nor touchy, nor critical." 
 Two or three extracts from other Quaker writings will be 
 sufficient for the object we have in view : — 
 
 " Faith in the history of Christ's outward manifestation 
 has been a deadly poison these latter ages have been 
 infested with. "J 
 
 " The sufferings of Friends, the people of God, in this 
 age, are greater sufferings, and more unjust than the suffer- 
 ings of Christ and his Apostles. What was done to Christ 
 and the Apostles, was chiefly done by a law, and in great 
 part by the due execution of a law."§ 
 
 * Neios Coming out of the North, by George Fox, p. 31. 
 t Spreading of Truth, by George Fox, p. 59. 
 J Quakerism, a New Nickname jor Christianity, by William Penn, 
 p. 146. 
 
 § Edward Burroughs' $ Works, p. 273. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 41 
 
 " Your imagined God beyond the stars, and your carnal 
 Christ, is utterly denied."* 
 
 " The Pope, the Episcopal, the Presbyterian, Indepen- 
 dents, and Baptists, understand the blood of Christ no 
 more than a brute beast."f 
 
 " ' I know nothing of Christ but within myself,' was the 
 language of Thomas Curtis, a preacher for forty years 
 among the early Friends. "J 
 
 Some of George Fox's anathemas against the Pope are 
 of so frightful a chai'acter that it is undesirable to transcribe 
 them. Yet the great historian of Quakerism, speaking of 
 one of the worst of these anathemas, says : " These are but 
 small particles of that flame which George Fox blew against 
 the Pope, intermixing his writings with many demonstra- 
 tions that the Popish Church was the whore of Babel." § 
 
 Now it must be confessed that the contradictory and 
 inconsistent statements of the Society of Friends are most 
 perplexing. As to the Jew " suffering is the badge of all 
 our race," to the Quaker inconsistency is the badge of all 
 their tribe. What, for instance, can be more strange than 
 to place the " Inward Testimony " above the "Written Re- 
 
 • The Sword of the Lord drawn, by Christopher Atkinson, p. 5. 
 
 t Burnet's Principles of the People called Quakers (Letter from 
 Solomon Eccles), p. 41. London, 1668. This was the same Eccles 
 that said : " The blood of Christ was no more than the blood of any- 
 other saint." (Leslie.) 
 
 X Leslie's Works, vol. ii., p. 236. 
 
 § The History of the People called Quakers, by W. Sewel, p. 408. 
 
 " Christ coming in the flesh was but a figure." and Fox also said 
 amongst thousands of blasphemies : " He that hath the spirit that 
 raiseth up Jesus from the dead is equal with God." — (Saul's Errand 
 to Damascus) Peun affirmed that " the light of Christ within is the 
 efficient cause of salvation, completely taken. — (Christian Quaker) 
 When a fanatical woman burnt a Bible Fox said : " she was over- 
 zealous but well-meaning." 
 
42 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 cord," and then quibble about the petty trivialities of dress 
 and manner, because certain incidental allusions are made 
 to these matters in Scripture ? Literally, in spite of their 
 fundamental doctrine, " plain teaching," a too literal inter- 
 pretation of passages which contain nothing doctrinal, has 
 done as much towards precipitating the Society to its pre- 
 sent condition as anything else. Its members have failed to 
 perceive that " all questions on religious subjects, howso- 
 ever, and by whomsoever, put, must be viewed relatively to 
 time, character, circumstances, and opportunities." They 
 have too rigidly adhered to Scriptural words (containing no 
 precepts, and involving no doctrine) in matters of the most 
 trivial character; ignoring the fact that primitive manners 
 and primitive customs, however sacred their origin (if ever 
 that could be proved), and however adapted to earlier and 
 less enlightened periods of our history, are manifestly 
 unworthy of an age of transition and progress. 
 
 So, again, is inconsistency evidenced in reference to the 
 passages which I have previously quoted from the writings 
 of Fox, and other accredited authorities of the Society's 
 initiatory period. 
 
 I appeal to any man of ordinary education, whether it 
 would be possible to express more offensive and blasphe- 
 mous sentiments in more offensive and blasphemous lan- 
 guage. And yet we are asked to accept all this as dictated 
 by that Holy Spirit which is superior to the written Word 
 of God. 
 
 Of course it occurred to me that Friends would now repu- 
 diate their early literature and these uninviting dogmas. 
 But I do not find, on consulting the Rules of Discipline, 
 that this is the case. It is there affirmed that, " as a 
 religious body, we are the same people our forefathers 
 were, in faith, in doctrine, in worship, in ministry, and in 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 43 
 
 discipline."* It is also there stated: "We earnestly recom- 
 mend to all the frequent perusal of the Holy Scriptures, 
 according to repeated exhortations ; and we at this time 
 also recommend the writings of our faithful predecessors, and 
 the accounts that are published of their experiences, labours, 
 travels, and sufferings in the cause of Christ."f I will rest 
 the objection which I raise to this avowal, upon the great 
 Quaker narrative — Fox's own Journal ; and I protest, that 
 it would be impossible to put into the hands of a young 
 person of pure and uncontaminated mind, a more demo- 
 ralizing and pestilential compound than this much vaunted 
 volume. 
 
 But it is stated also in the Rides of Discipline, p. 67, 
 (and this is the inconsistency which is so irreconcilable 
 with what has been before recorded), "The preservation 
 of love is a duty in every state of religious attainment; 
 and did we faithfully observe the great Master's precept 
 of doing to others as we would they should do to us, its 
 practice would be easy. Detraction and enmity would 
 then be destroyed, in the seed, and that excellent Christian 
 charity, recommended by the Apostle, prevail over all." 
 
 It should be observed, too, that this avowal of holding 
 to the entire creed and opinions of first Quakers ; the 
 exhortation to peruse for the soul's benefit the early litera- 
 ture of the Society ; and this inculcation of Christian 
 charity, were respectively recorded within a short period 
 of each other, and have received the stamp of general 
 approval in the Society's last edition (1834) of its Rules of 
 Discipline. 
 
 These things, then, being so, and these foul anathemas 
 and unholy denunciations being handed down to us as the 
 
 * Preface to Rules of Discipline, p. iii. (last edition). London, lb34. 
 f Rules of Discipline, p. 29. 
 
44 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 immediate dictations of the Divine Spirit, by a people, 
 whose creed — or at least a part whose creed — is, that the 
 purest form of speech is " yea, nay ;" that " blessed are the 
 peacemakers that " blessed are the pure in heart, for 
 they shall see God," &c. — what conclusion are we to 
 arrive at as to the consistency of their Religion, or the 
 strange kind of uniformity which must spring therefrom ? 
 And am I not right in saying that the decline of Quakerism 
 is in a large measure owing to the recognition of the 
 doctrine of " Immediate Spiritual Revelation," being 
 superior to that written Revelation which we call " Scrip- 
 ture," and which we believe, above all things, to be of 
 priceless value ? Is it not a doctrine which I am right in 
 terming " unappreciable," inasmuch as the immense 
 majority of Christians see and feel the impossibility of re- 
 ceiving it, because of its inevitable tendency to perversion 
 by weak and ignorant Fanatics. 
 
 Truly it has been said that this form of delusion should 
 excite pity rather than provoke rebuke ; and that it calls 
 for the skill of the physician, more than for the instruc- 
 tion of the theologian. "The limits of insanity have not 
 yet been ascertained ; perhaps it has none : and certainly 
 there are facts that favour the belief that the interval 
 between common weakness of judgment and outrageous 
 madness is filled up by an insensible gradation of absur- 
 dity, nowhere admitting of a line of absolute separation. 
 Where, for example, shall we pause, and separate the 
 sane from the insane among those who believe themselves 
 to be favoured perpetually with special, particular, and 
 ultra-scriptural revelations from Heaven ? The most 
 modest enthusiast of this class, and the most daring 
 visionary, stand together on the same ground of outlawry 
 from common sense and Scriptural authority ; and though 
 their several offences against truth and sobriety may be of 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 45 
 
 greater or less amount, they must both be dealt with on 
 the same principle ; for both have alike excluded them- 
 selves from the benefit of appeal to the only authorities 
 known among the sane part of mankind, namely reason 
 and Scripture ; those who reject both surrender them- 
 selves over to pity — or compulsion. It would manifestly 
 be better that men should be left to the darkness and 
 wanderings of unassisted reason, than that they should 
 receive the immediate instructions of Heaven, unless they 
 possess at the same time a public and fixed rule to which 
 all such supernatural instructions are to be conformed, and 
 by which they are to be discriminated ; for the errors of 
 reason, how great soever they may be, carry with them no 
 weight of Divine authority : but if the doctrine of Divine 
 communications be admitted, and admitted without refe- 
 rence to a public and permanent standard of truth, then 
 every extravagance of impiety may claim a Heavenly 
 origin ; and who shall venture to rebuke even the most 
 pestilent error ; for how shall the reprover assure himself 
 that he is not fighting against God."* 
 
 And there is another development and extension of this 
 doctrine which ought not to be altogether unnoticed. 
 There have been many sections, indeed, of the Christian 
 Church more or less obnoxious to the charge of a belief in 
 special personal " providences" of a supernatural character, 
 and of spiritual guidances in all the temporal concerns of 
 life. And, as might have been expected, there has been 
 no doctrine more productive of absolute infidelity with a 
 class of persons whose minds have imbibed anything of a 
 too ratiocinative or sceptical tendency ; and of the most 
 
 * Natural History of Enthusiasm, by Isaac Taylor, 10th edit. 
 London, 1845, pp. 67-8. 
 
46 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 acute misery in another class, who have fallen within the 
 influence of a highly nervous and morbid pietism. 
 
 To such a height had this evil grown about fifty years 
 ago, and to such a mischievous and impious extent had it 
 been elaborated in the pages of the Evangelical and Metho- 
 dist Magazines, that Sydney Smith was induced to expose 
 it, in his inimitable manner, in the Edinburgh Review. 
 The doctrine alluded to peculiarly characterizes Quakers 
 and Methodists, and all religious persons who have become 
 so blinded with the dazzling and overpowering sense of 
 the Great First Cause, as to lose all appreciation of the 
 general uniformity of His action through the medium of 
 secondary causes, by and through which the affairs of 
 this life are alone guided and regulated. If indeed they 
 are regulated in any other way than by a uniform fixity 
 of purpose, which is written so legibly that it may be read, 
 and by a harmonious adaptation, which enable us to con- 
 nect together effects with their legitimate antecedent 
 causation — history becomes worthless, experience valueless, 
 and all progress of general and scientific character useless. 
 
 Mr. Clarkson says, in the dreariest of dreary books, 
 that it is the doctrine of Quakerism on the subject of the 
 Spirit, that it is an infallible guide to men in their 
 spiritual concerns. But he is unable to discover from 
 Quaker writings that it is to be a guide to man in the 
 temporal concerns of life. And he adds (what is very 
 true) that George Fox was very apprehensive that even 
 in matters of religion, which constitute the immediate 
 province of the Divine Spirit, men might mistake their 
 own enthusiastic feelings for revelations ; and he censured 
 some " for having gone out into imaginations." * Now I 
 
 Portraiture of Quakerism, vol iii., pp. 237-8. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 47 
 
 confess to a great waste of time during the past five 
 months in having waded through early, and indeed more 
 recent, Quaker literature, where I have met (in the 
 former) with more ribald blasphemy, and (in the latter) 
 with more morbid and pseudo-religious sentimentalism, 
 than I had thought it possible any persons could have 
 deliberately placed upon record. And I am bound to 
 sav, that if there is one doctrine more than another 
 stamped upon those records, it is that of direct spiritual 
 guidance in temporalities, and constant personal inter- 
 ferences on the part of the Deity, by acts of arbitrary 
 cruelty, and petty annoyance, which you or I would be 
 ashamed to perpetrate. 
 
 Whatever Fox's fears about others " running out into 
 imaginations," his own Journal yields abundant evidence 
 of the extravagant nature of his belief in direct personal 
 communications, for all kinds of purposes, with his Maker. 
 Whatever happened, which fell in and accorded with what 
 he wanted to happen — as the death of a blasphemer, or of 
 one who could not embrace his tenets — immediately this 
 wild enthusiast relates the fact, and the means by which 
 the fact was accomplished. At one place in his travels he 
 was seized by the populace for his obstructive conduct ; 
 and, debating whether they should or should not put him 
 in the stocks, they at last let him go. Fox records the 
 circumstance thus : " But the Lord's power was so over 
 them, and so restrained them, that they were not able to 
 put me in the stocks."* Again, he says : " But the Lord 
 soon after met this envious person and cut him off in his 
 wickedness."! Again : "When we came in they set meat 
 before us : but as I was going to eat the word of the Lord 
 came to me, saying, ' Eat not the bread of such as have 
 
 * Journal, p. 64. 
 
 t J bid., p. 64. 
 
48 
 
 a FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 an evil eye.'' Immediately I rose up from the table and 
 ate nothing." * 
 
 One Barbara Blangdon, an early convert to Quakerism, 
 "was moved to call a family to leave off their vanity. 
 Going to the front door of the house where the said 
 family resided, she was sent round to the back door by the 
 servants." " Barbara being come thither, a great mastiff 
 dog was set loose upon her : and he, running fiercely at 
 her, as if to devour her, turned suddenly and went away 
 crying and halting, whereby she clearly saw the hand of the 
 Lord in it to preserve her from this danger. "t There is also 
 recorded by Fox, and by Sewel, "what befel Captain Drury 
 for reproaching George Fox with the name of Quaker/' % 
 As I read the narrative, the Captain must have had what 
 many others have had before him, an attack of ague : 
 being seen in the cold shivering fit, these " Discerners of 
 the Lord's hand in everything/' of course said it was a 
 direct punishment for abusing a man who abused every- 
 body else. The before-mentioned Barbara Blangdon also 
 quieted a storm at sea, in crossing the Irish Channel, 
 " which indeed was strange, and made the master say, on 
 arriving in Dublin, that he never was in such a storm 
 without receiving any loss/^ " An Independent pastor, 
 preaching one day against the Quakers and the Light and 
 calling the Light natural, cursed it, and so fell down as 
 dead in his pulpit. The people carrying him out, and 
 pouring strong waters into him, it brought him to life 
 again ; but he was mopish, and, as one of his hearers said, 
 he never recovered his senses/ 1 1| 
 
 Sewel mentions likewise the " sudden and remarkable 
 
 * Journal, p. 65. t SeweVs History of Quakers, p. 92. 
 
 Xlbid., p. 99. § Ibid, p. 110. 
 
 || Ibid, p. 170, and Fox's Journal. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 40 
 
 end of W. Watt, an informer at Norw ich," upon whom 
 " the hand of God fell so heavy that it put a period to his 
 life," and, " what was looked upon as a very strange thing, 
 the corpse stunk so grievously that none were willing to 
 carry it."* When any of their own memhers die, it is 
 always spoken of, by these early writers, as " the pious 
 end," &c, and "the honourable interment," &c, of such 
 and such a Friend. There is a narrative of a most event- 
 ful character in which two Friends sailed for the West 
 Indies, and being fearful of the French fleet which Avas 
 then (1691) on the look-out for the British in every direc- 
 tion ; and having thoroughly imbibed the spirit of that 
 Gospel which affirms : " But I say unto you, bless your 
 enemies ; and pray for them that despitefully use you," 
 " yet at the same time being strong in faith that it was easy 
 for the Lord to deliver them," when the French fleet did 
 come up behaved after the following Christian pattern : 
 " Then James arose from his seat, and took Thomas by 
 the hand, saying ' Now, I hope the Lord will deliver us ;' 
 and their exercises were answered, that He who in times past 
 smote his enemies with blindness, would be pleased to do so 
 now — which it was graciously answered, the event convinced 
 them; for the French took all the ships of their (the 
 English) company, except the ship which J. W. and T. D. 
 were in, and two more."f 
 
 And the Journals of the best of Quakers in modern 
 times are disfigured by narrations of these constantly 
 recurring special providences, though they are not 
 blurted out in so offensive a manner. Mrs. Fry deals 
 largely in them ; Joseph John Gurney still more so. The 
 
 * Sewer s JJistor/j of Quakers, p. 6/0. 
 
 t History of the Rise and Progress of Quakers in Ireland, by 
 Thomas Wight and John Rutty, p. 154. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 former says that the " Refiner and purifier of silver" sent 
 her in one year " a long and distressing indisposition, the 
 death of her brother John, and of her paternal friend 
 Joseph Gurney Bevan, the loss of a most tenderly beloved 
 child, considerable loss of property, separation for a time 
 from her family,'' in order to try her faith.* 
 
 J. J. Gurney says : " When the day came (for giving a 
 Lecture at the Mechanics' institution) I was very poorly, 
 
 my voice almost entirely gone When I 
 
 entered I took my station on the floor, and could not but 
 enjoy the spectacle of more than 1.200 mechanics occupy- 
 ing the raised seats of the Amphitheatre to a very con- 
 siderable elevation. O how merciful was the Lord to his 
 poor servant on that occasion ! Many were, I believe, 
 secretly praying for me; and their prayers were answered. 
 After speaking about ten minutes I entirely recovered my 
 voice. This might have been in part owing to the arrange- 
 ment now alluded to, which constrained me to lift up the 
 head and throw out the chest ; but I nevertheless grate- 
 fully acknowledge it to have been a special favour from the 
 hand of my Divine Master. Clearness of ideas and fluency 
 of speech were also graciously bestowed. ''f 
 
 William Allen's business premises in Plough Court 
 were nearly burnt down by the bursting of a bottle of 
 strong nitrous acid. He says : " When I consider the 
 nature of the accident, our escape seems little short of a 
 miracle. If it had happened in the night there appears 
 no probability that our lives would have been saved. 
 About nine o'clock it was got under, and I trust I may 
 
 * Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth. Fry, &c. vol. i., p. 207. 
 London, 1847. 
 
 t Memoirs of Joseph John Gurney, by Joseph B. Braithwaite. 
 vol. i., p. 467. London. 1854. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 51 
 
 say providentially, though I felt myself unworthy of such a 
 favour."* 
 
 Now I should be veiy sorry for it to be thought that I 
 doubted the excellence of such men as Gurney and Allen. 
 I believe that in the largest sense they are beyond all 
 praise : their exemplary conduct in every relationship of 
 life is not to be questioned. But they inherited probably; 
 and cultivated certainly, a habit of looking out for super- 
 natural interferences on the part of the Deity, in matters 
 where the result obtained and attributed to the special act 
 may invariably be explained by principles and facts with 
 which all of us are perfectly familiar. Minds of their stamp, 
 however educated, and however logical when placed out 
 of the sphere of these special influences, are so impressed 
 with the idea that if they do not realize to themselves 
 constant exercises of a supernatural First Cause, they are 
 placing their sole reliance in secondary causes, and insensibly 
 imbibing a material tendency ; that they are led step by 
 step into the most extravagant expectations, and, as a 
 necessary consequence, at times into the most grievous 
 disappointment. For if once you admit the special act of 
 interference in a trivial incident of domestic life, or even 
 in a matter of much larger moment — if the same incident 
 should recur, and this time without the same satisfactory 
 accompaniment, one of the weaker brethren naturally con- 
 cludes that he is under a special and punitive dealing from 
 the Almighty. Yet these unhappy individuals prefer the im- 
 perfect accident of interference, to the perfect and defined 
 harmony of law. The various forms of religious insanity 
 confirm the truth of these observations. Surely almost 
 every impartial mind will admit that there is no Divine 
 
 * Memoirs of William Allen, F.R.S., by James Sherman, p. 33. 
 London, 1857. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 interference necessary to explain satisfactorily any of the 
 above-narrated incidents. They are of daily occurrence, 
 and are all of them more or less under our own control, as 
 they admit of the most reasonable explanation. There is 
 nothing more common, for instance, than for a strange 
 person who enters a yard where there is a dog, to be barked 
 at and run at by the said dog ; and there is nothing more 
 common than for the animal, immediately he has satisfied 
 the first impulses of his canine nature, to seek his kennel, 
 or begin wagging his tail. There is nothing more common 
 than for one who is hoarse to recover his voice by an act 
 of continuous speaking, which necessitates certain expul- 
 sory efforts for the clearing of the larynx and trachea. 
 The same result would equally follow whether the speaker 
 was about to open his mouth for the worst or the best of pur- 
 poses. And there is another view to take of such a case as 
 that of our friend's house being burned, which makes this 
 subject more dangerous and complicated than ever, upon 
 the admission of providential interference. For if I admit 
 that God interfered to save the premises in Plough 
 Court, I must admit the correlative that He caused the 
 bursting of the bottle, and the immediate wrapping of the 
 whole place in flames, merely that He might again inter- 
 fere with an individual exercise of His power.* Where is 
 
 * The absurdities into which men may be laid by this doctrine 
 of special providences, were very ably toucbed upon the other day 
 in the first of our weekly papers, in an article upon Lord Mahon's 
 motion for a petition to the Queen to expunge from the Book of 
 Common Prayer two of our State services. " All admit that every 
 thing is providential — each may and must be a part of one great 
 whele, every event in which is known to God. But then it is as much 
 God's work that Charles I. was beheaded, as that Charles II. was 
 restored. It is objected to Sir A. Alison that he makes Providence 
 a high tory partisan ; but this perhaps is more intelligible than 
 selecting some of God's actions for snecial praise, because the cor- 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 53 
 
 the occasion for this sort of interpretation;, by an appeal 
 to the supernatural, of circumstances which are clearly 
 within the scope of human agencies ? 
 
 It will be observed that the " providences," like the 
 habits and minds, of modern Friends, are quiet and refined, 
 as compared with those recorded in the musty volumes of 
 the seventeenth century, where they are made subservient 
 to the vindictive excesses of a miserable fanaticism; though 
 it must be confessed that some of the examples given by 
 Sydney Smith, in his article on Methodism, are very 
 appalling and very wicked. Quakers, however, as a class 
 are much better educated than Methodists. 
 
 One is horrified at reading serious accounts of " an 
 Interference respecting swearing — a bee the instrument" 
 [Evang. Mag., p. 3G3); of "an Interference with respect 
 to David Wright, who was cured of Atheism and scrofula 
 by one sermon of Mr. Coles" [Evang. Mag., p. 444) ; of 
 " an Interference respecting cards " [Evang. Mag., p. 262) 
 of " the displeasure of Providence at Capt. Scott going to 
 
 relative of this is that soma of God's actions are blameable. If the 
 Bishop of Bangor were consistent and logical with his views of 
 providential interposition, he would as often beat his Divinity as 
 offer incense to him. Political Mauichoeism, like Sir A. Alison's, is 
 quite intelligible. We understand dualism. Heaven is Tory— Satan 
 is a Whig. This was Johnson's view of things human and divine : 
 God fights for England, the Devil fights for France. But if we are 
 told that we are especially bound to be grateful and full of thanks- 
 giving because God saved James L from gunpowder, we are equally 
 bound to be very angry with Providence for not interfering on 
 behalf of his son. The difference is this — that in the one case we 
 are glad to get God on our side, in the other we only thank God for 
 those of his deeds which we approve of. In either case this view 
 of special providences makes Heaven a political partizan. Besides, 
 where is this to stop ] What is the test of especial specialty which 
 is to satisfy all that the digitus vindice nodus is attained t" — Saturday 
 Review. 
 
54 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 preach at Mr. Romaine's Chapel " (Evang. Mag., p. 537) ; 
 of an " Interference with respect to an innkeeper, who 
 was destroyed for having appointed a cock-fight at the 
 very time the service was appointed at the Methodist 
 Chapel" {Method. Mag., p. 126) ; &c. &c. 
 
 The famous Edinburgh Reviewer sums up well the 
 frightful danger and the demoralizing tendency of this 
 view of providential interference in all the little actions 
 of our lives ; for it causes the successful man always to be 
 considered as a good man, and the unhappy man as the 
 object of Divine vengeance ; " whereas the honest and the 
 orthodox method is to prepare young people for the wqrld 
 as it actually exists ; to tell them that they will often find 
 vice perfectly successful, virtue exposed to a long train of 
 afflictions ; that they must bear this patiently, and look to 
 another world for its rectification." This doctrine, too, 
 " has a great tendency to check human exertions, and to 
 prevent the employment of those secondary means of 
 effecting an object which Providence has placed in our 
 power. The doctrine of the immediate and perpetual inter- 
 ference of Divine Providence is not true."* 
 
 It is indeed to be hoped it is not true, for a more 
 frightful doctrine was never eliminated from Scripture. 
 If God really does what some persons say he constantly 
 does, it were better at once to ignore everything but the 
 
 * Works of the Rev. Sydney Smith, p. 95. London, 1854. 
 
 Mr. Clarkson quite recognized, in another place, the belief of 
 Quakers in the extreme view of special providences, and says : " I 
 should be sorry to have God considered as a clock, that is to inform 
 us about the times of our ordinary movements ; or to make him a 
 prompter in all our worldly concerns ; or to oblige Him to take His 
 seat in animal magnetism, or to reside in the midst of marvellous 
 delusions. Why should we expect a revelation in the most trivial 
 concerns in our lives, where our reason will inform us ?" — Por- 
 traiture of Quakerism, vol. iii., p. 246. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 55 
 
 wildest chance, and the most chaotic hazard. Indeed 
 such a view of His dealings reduces us to a system of this 
 character ; utterly at variance with the general experience 
 of mankind, utterly subversive of all order and arrange- 
 ment, and utterly destructive of religious Faith, and Hope, 
 and — Charity. I could never love God, as I hope I do ; 
 never turn my thoughts towards Him, who came down to 
 us to sympathize and identify Himself with our weak- 
 nesses ; never wish to have a more intimate relationship 
 with Him, if I appropriated to myself this mockery of a 
 providential scheme. And be it observed, that its rejec- 
 tion does not in any sense interfere with or negative the 
 objects of legitimate prayer — that He who knows all our 
 weaknesses may ever spiritually sustain us, giving us grace 
 to pass safely through all spiritual trials, and strength to 
 stand against all spiritual temptations.* 
 
 " If I am right, Thy grace impart, 
 Still in the right to stay ; 
 If I am wrong, O teach my heart 
 To find that better way." 
 
 II. The rejection of an organized and paid Ministry ; 
 and the recognition of the Immediate Inspiration of male 
 
 * It is not to be doubted that we very often do pray for a divine 
 interference with the laws of nature, when it would be more seemly 
 and more religious to leave such matters in His hands who sends 
 His rain alike upon the just and the unjust. " I recollect," says 
 Mr. Cradock in his Memoirs (vol. i., p. 138), " a very worthy rector, 
 possessed of a great living in one of the midland counties, who 
 informed me that on his induction to it he had met with a parti- 
 cular difficulty ; for an enclosure had just taken place, and half of 
 his parish petitioned that he would pray for rain, that their quick- 
 sets might grow ; and the other half that he would intercede for 
 fair weather, as they were in the midst of the hay harvest." — 
 Sdvihetft Commonplace Booh, p. 310. 
 
56 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 and female Preachers for the various occasions of Devotional 
 Assembling. 
 
 Like most of the propositions affecting the stability of 
 Quakerism as an Institution of the nineteenth century, 
 the one to be here touched upon is more socio-political 
 than doctrinal. The disjunctive teaching of the letter 
 alike supports and negatives what the Spirit of the Gospel, 
 and the coapting circumstances of our increased know- 
 ledge of character, of the differences between the two 
 •sexes, and the many helps of advancing civilization, might 
 make sufficiently clear to unfettered understandings. 
 
 Quakers are of opinion that there can be no human 
 calling for a divine office, and therefore that it is wrong 
 to set apart persons for special training to the ministry, 
 an initiation into which should be purely by the direct 
 and personal instrumentality of the Spirit. 
 
 I have before made allusion to Fox's direct revelation 
 from heaven, that an education at Oxford and Cambridge 
 was not sufficient to constitute a call to God's service.* 
 Nobody ever said it was. What was said then, and what 
 is repeated now, is, that an University education is a good 
 preparation for a gentleman; and that a gentleman, by 
 reason of his education, is more likely to be instrumental 
 
 * Barclay seems to have had a peculiar antipathy against the 
 University men of his day — " the young fry of the clergy," as he 
 calls them. He says : " And let it not be forgotten, but let it be 
 inscribed, and abide for a constant remembrance of the thing, that 
 in these brutish and beastly pranks, used to molest us in our 
 spiritual meetings, none have been more busie than the young- 
 students of the Universities, who were learning philosophy and 
 divinity (so called) and many of them preparing themselves for the 
 ministry" &c. — Apology, p. 375. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 57 
 
 for good in a parish than a low ignorant fanatic. " If 
 God does not stand in need of human learning," said South, 
 " still less does He stand in need of human ignorance." An 
 illiterate man, " dressed in leather," with no knowledge of 
 human nature, no respect for social institutions, no idea 
 that any one could think rightly but himself — going from 
 place to place, now defying everybody who offered him the 
 least opposition with " the terrors of the Lord ; or in calmer 
 moments telling his listeners to " sit down in Christ, 
 again, I say, sit down" (Fox's Journal), would do now, as 
 two hundred years ago, much more harm than good to the 
 cause of true religion. It is a shame, indeed, ever to have 
 taxed religion with having had any hand in the produc- 
 tion of those things which I have previously narrated, 
 as being a part of early Quaker experiences. Religion ! 
 She is never anywhere where there are not tolerance and 
 charity. Earnestness is no test of a capacity for real work, 
 nor spiritual commotion, of the power to progress, nor un- 
 controlled ecstacy, of godlike fellowship and communion. 
 True Religion, indeed, like cheerfulness, is (what Addison 
 calls) " a perpetual sunshine," and (what Solomon calls) 
 " a continual feast." It preaches " "Woe unto them that 
 call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, 
 and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and 
 sweet for bitter" — woe, because our moral natures are so 
 constituted that whilst we deprave and pervert them we 
 render them incapable of receiving and appropriating the 
 sublime influences of Christianity. We do not accept as 
 veracious, because we are not furnished with any of that 
 kind of evidence to which as reasonable creatures we are 
 entitled, Fox's bare statements, abounding in every page 
 of his Journal, that this man was " convinced," or that 
 that man " received the truth," any more than we believe 
 
58 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 his other affirmations — that one was " cut off" because he 
 interrupted the preacher; or that another was " struck by 
 the Lord" because he stood in the way of spiritual pro- 
 gress ; or that God " blasted false prophets who rose up 
 against me, and will blast all who rise up against the 
 blessed seed, and me in that."* 
 
 The mass of sin and wickedness in our great towns is 
 not to be grappled with by self-sufficient ignorance, be it 
 animated by never so much zeal ; nor is it to be met in the 
 way of preaching by casual "calls to the gallery."t We 
 must have a regular " organized instrumentality ; " we 
 must have a thorough recognition of human means, as 
 those through which alone ends are achieved, and victories 
 won. The most sacred missions require these means, and 
 by the ordering of God's providence missions are alone suc- 
 cessful through them. " God is a good worker," says the 
 proverb, " but He loves to be helped." And the help 
 which we can give is by so reading His unvarying dealings 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. 118. 
 
 + This is the expression used by Friends to signify their spiritual 
 call to the work of the ministry. Joseph John Gurney felt the 
 responsibility attached to such a call, and expresses himself con- 
 cerning it in characteristic phraseology : " I feel a good deal at 
 sitting in the gallery, not being to my own apprehension adequately 
 spiritual." At another time he records his ministerial success, and 
 that of others : " I was enabled to declare the Gospel with unusual 
 power." At a period when the preaching of others as well as 
 himself had been "lively and refreshing," he says : "It was a time 
 of remarkable openness, the Word appearing to run and find en- 
 trance." " There is a remarkable breaking forth of the ministry in 
 these parts." " It was an inexpressibly exercising meeting." " I felt 
 the oil flow in a way to which of late I have been much a stranger ; 
 and two of our women Friends were remarkable in the exercise of 
 their gifts." — From, Gurney 1 a Journal and Letters. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 59 
 
 with us, that we may be prepared for every trial, and 
 bring our hearts and minds into such an harmonious 
 adaptiveness to his moral and spiritual laws, that we may 
 not be presumptuously led to ask for any special interven- 
 tion on our individual behalf, whilst there is one good and 
 Universal Providence for all mankind.* 
 
 The man, therefore, to do good in a parish, is not neces- 
 sarily he who has attained the greatest spiritual exaltation, 
 nor who is most familiar with Scriptural concordances, 
 nor who was at the time of his initiation most sensible of 
 a special " ministerial gifting." For every one of experience 
 will acknowledge that there are many men of this stamp, 
 most excellent and well-intentioned, who are unable to 
 recognize the full importance of human instrumentalities ; 
 who spend more time in writing sermons, or in reading 
 scriptures which they already know by heart, than in 
 cultivating their own minds by general literature, visiting 
 
 * Those who have travelled in the East will tell you that 
 neither Christianity nor social progress will be established there 
 until good roads are constructed, that is until the commercial 
 character is developed, by providing an outlet for the internal 
 resources of the various countries which constitute the Orient. 
 All Dr. Livingstone's testimony respecting Africa is to this effect. 
 A Turkish Pasha told a modern traveller : " I am satisfied 
 that Turkey will never advance until she has means of com- 
 munication sufficient to make her internal resources available. 
 This is the first step towards the regeneration of the Orient — and 
 the only first step in the path of true progress." The pickaxe must 
 precede the Bible. But the people rebel at the very suggestion of a 
 road. And so (it should almost seem) Christianity is mapped out 
 geographically, and its limits defined by latitude and longitude. An 
 English engineer now striving to construct a high-road in the island 
 of Crete, has the greatest difficulty in protecting himself and his 
 labourers from the aggressive attacks of the natives. So great is 
 their antipathy against that without which progress is impossible. 
 
60 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 the sick, comforting the afflicted, making the poor sensible 
 that in being best educated for this world they are being 
 best educated for the next, bringing together the upper and 
 lower classes, and in combining moral and intellectual 
 with spiritual instruction. The best sermons may be 
 preached in the cottage, where there is no ear to hear 
 them, but the preacher's, the sufferer's, and God's. The 
 noblest discourse may be read to a whole community by 
 the mauner in which one bears the grind of poverty, or 
 the bitterness of personal injury. You may learn more 
 (at least I hope so, or Christianity is not good for much) from 
 a quiet unobtrusive scene of this sort, than from the mere- 
 tricious services of Students of Civil Law at St. John's 
 Wood, or the illiterate jocularity of the Surrey Gardens, 
 or the wailings and lamentations of " Crown Court" at the 
 " Tribulations which are coming upon the Earth," or the 
 nasal monotones of self-complacent or even God-fearing 
 Quietists. You may inculcate wisdom and charity, on the 
 village green, or in the Mechanics' Institute, or in the 
 lanes and alleys of country and of town. He " whom the 
 heaven of heavens cannot contain" may thus be brought 
 within the sphere of human sympathies, and be realized 
 by every Christian heart as the source of all peace and 
 comfort. 
 
 The position, then, which we desire to establish is this : it 
 is generally acknowledged that the doctrinal view which 
 Quakers take of the question of " the ministry " is not 
 a correct one, even upon Scriptural grounds; and it is 
 still more generally acknowledged, that, even if their 
 doctrine was clearly supported by Holy Writ, it would be 
 impossible to carry it out, any more than it would be 
 possible to carry out the injunction delivered to the first 
 Apostles, to go out on their divine mission without purse and 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 without scrip, or any more than we do practise the habit, 
 of letting the morrow* take thought for itself. No one but 
 a madman would think now-a-days of going out to evan- 
 gelize a London parish without first obtaining every possible 
 kind of material assistance. And the chief mover in the 
 work must be paid for his services like any other labourer 
 who is w orthy of hire. To draw any practical inferences 
 from the proceedings of a body of well-to-do Exclusionists 
 who are (I think it is Southey who made the remark) as 
 complete an insulation as if they were set down in the 
 middle of Central Africa, would be absolutely absurd.* 
 The Quaker ministry has no need to be paid. They are 
 wealthy and influential men in the Society.-}- They go 
 about from place to place, their travelling expenses being 
 met out of a general fund for that purpose ; they are well 
 entertained at the houses of the most important Friends in 
 each town which they visit ; and a more agreeable and 
 delightful time than they have it is impossible to conceive. 
 
 * " There are probably several European nations which are less 
 distinguished from each other, than this Society is from the rest of 
 the English people."— Table Talk. 
 
 t It should be noted that though according to "ancient prin- 
 ciples" the right belongs to any Quaker to address meetings, in a 
 ministerial capacity, who avows himself under the influence of a 
 spiritual call, it was found impossible to permit this practice, by 
 reason of the fanatical abuse of the very doctrine which we have 
 considered under our first heading. The " call to the gallery," is 
 really a setting apai-t certain members (always leading and influ- 
 ential ones — the Spirit displaying considerable partizanship,) for 
 Scriptual exposition. Any accidental trespassing upon their prero- 
 gative by a loquacious but unrecognized individual may be once 
 permitted ; but its repetition is jealously resented and forbidden. 
 The " Rules of Discipline" are quoted in answer to the " Inward 
 Testimony." 
 
G2 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 And they are quite right to do all this if they choose. But 
 this is not that labour in the Lord's vineyard to which a 
 parish priest or a Dissenting minister may have to subject 
 themselves. This only constitutes in a very limited sense 
 what was meant by the "without money and without price." 
 A clergyman of the Established Church, and a Noncon- 
 formist minister, have not only to live for, but to live by, 
 their respective Establishments ; they have no other 
 means of subsistence, and, unhappily, the breadth of their 
 family circle is usually in the inverse ratio of the length of 
 their purses. But a Quaker minister has no need for 
 money payments, the Bank and the Brewery already 
 abundantly furnishing him therewith. He devotes, and 
 very properly devotes, the great part of his time to these 
 worldly matters ; his religious work, as such, in evan- 
 gelizing a heathen world, is a very small item compared with 
 the work of others. In fact, what he has to do in his 
 ministerial calling is not work ; it is unworthy of such a 
 name ; it is merely a pleasing outlet for his gentle enthu- 
 siasm. He is not fitted for it. He repudiates for the most 
 part the instrumentality of material agencies, recognizing 
 only the unseen workings of the Spirit. But how can the 
 Spirit cleanse Augean stables? We want the right thing 
 in the right place, and then we shall have the right thing 
 done, and the right place occupied. There is a greai.deal 
 in knowing how and when to strike in ; to arrange, to 
 methodize, to adapt, — to put the right attraction under 
 the eye at the proper moment, and so to discriminate 
 between one character and another, as to be ever ready 
 with the special treatment required for each separate indi- 
 viduality. You may see the right thing in the right place 
 every day if you look in the Times. Under that mournful 
 obituary where you aud I shall figure some day, you may 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 G3 
 
 learn (alas ! if you have not already learned) how to bury 
 your wife, or child — how to " cause the marble to assume 
 a living shape, and bend mournfully over their ashes." 
 You shall gather some information about the scapegrace of 
 a son, who has run away from you ; or he may learn that 
 " all shall be forgiven if he will return home immediately 
 to his disconsolate parents," if you run your eye down the 
 hopeful column which is side by side with the Marriage 
 and the Birth. What tales have been there told ! What 
 despairing hearts have drank in therefrom new life and 
 vigour ! 
 
 But come with me for awhile, and I will show you yet 
 more clearly the right thing in the right place. I will 
 show you the right way of achieving that, the difficulty of 
 which may seem at first sight to be absolutely insurmount- 
 able. It is not very far off — this sight with which I want 
 to familiarize you ; and it is within a few minutes' walk of 
 the most fashionable part of our modern Babylon. 
 
 " It appears by a Report from Mr. Goderich, officer of 
 health in the parish of Kensington, that in a place called 
 the Potteries there are 1,147 human beings, and 1,041 
 pigs, congregated within a space of less than nine acres, the 
 present number of pigs being below the usual average. 5 '* 
 Now here is an objective fact which we have got to 
 deal with. It is worse than anything to be found in 
 South Africa, where you sometimes send your money and 
 your sympathy, and young men in white chokers ; or in any 
 other country in the world, because it is in the midst of 
 (what we term) civilization, and in the heart of (what 
 we call) a Christian country. How are we to humanize 
 this place — turn wild beasts into men and women ? How 
 
 * Night-side of London, by J. E. lUtchie. p. 9. 
 
64 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 are we to set about improving the soil, ere we sow the good 
 seed which, dropped in at the right time, and in the right 
 manner, may step by step develope itself into cleanliness, 
 into decency, into health, into comfort, into morality, 
 into religious virtue, into Christian love, and finally fruc- 
 tuate into everlasting life ? We must begin at the be- 
 ginning — that's quite certain : no half-measures M ill do 
 here. Nothing of an exclusive character will do in such 
 a case as this. " Rules of Discipline" we want, truly, but 
 not of the Quaker sort — Rules of Discipline which will 
 reach down to the very depths of this physical and moral 
 depravity. See how differently men will go to work to 
 treat (there is only one way of curing) the same disease. 
 There are some, zealous, earnest, pious, well-intentioned, 
 who will commence with their tracts, and their Scripture 
 readings, and their religious small-talk about coming to 
 church, about the duty of bearing the trials imposed by 
 God, while fever or cholera, generated and sustained by 
 collective circumstances, over which the parish authorities 
 have abundant control, if they like to exercise it, decimate 
 the starved and heathen population. What a land of dark- 
 ness for a Christian minister to enter ! But there is no 
 good to be done this way, because there is no recognition 
 of those subordinate instrumentalities which are required 
 for the achievement of the largest and most comprehensive 
 measures. There are others (and these are the right men 
 in the right place) who will enter upon this mission very 
 differently — who will pull down before they attempt to 
 build up, and who are in every sense alive to the stu- 
 pendous nature of the task before them. This district, we 
 will say, which is a type of many, becomes a recognized 
 Ecclesiastical district, and is brought under systematic 
 pastoral supervision. It is allotted to an active, energetic, 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 65 
 
 fearless self-denying labourer — a man of common sense as 
 well as a man of M»common and large-hearted sympathy, 
 lie takes off his coat, and turns up his sleeves, and meets 
 his difficulties boldly. His success will depend in some mea- 
 sure upon the character of the wealthy inhabitants of the 
 immediate neighbourhood, and of the relationship which 
 he can judiciously bring about between that character 
 and degrading misery. Dives must be introduced to 
 Lazarus. This labourer must sometimes yield to their 
 prejudices about trifles in order to enlist their sympathies, 
 and secure their pecuniary assistance in a matter which is 
 anything but trifling. For instance, he must not put on 
 an ecclesiastical vestment which is associated in the minds 
 of ignorant, or even educated, persons, with a system not 
 regarded in Eugland with peculiar love and affection. It 
 should be manifest to him that a large-hearted man, 
 though a priest, is better than a narrow-minded priest, 
 though a man. He should see that it is of more im- 
 portance to get these pigs out of the parish and the Gospel 
 iuto it, than that he should wear an alb or a cope in 
 testimony to a rigid principle. He should be " equal to 
 his own epoch." Is he High-Church, or Low-Church, or 
 Broad-Church ? or — what is he ? Never miud what name 
 he bears. " By their fruits ye shall know them." If 
 he be but a man of sound sterling sense, unwilling to 
 do violence to the feelings of others, by trivial dogma- 
 tizings, and by demonstrations of a well-understood 
 nature, which serve to arouse party, all will go right. 
 If he has but a practical acquaintance with human nature 
 — can see the correct relations of things to each other as 
 cause and effect — and has a cheerful sympathizing manner 
 — he will not fail of success. He will blot out this foul 
 stain from the parochial district : he will convert this 
 
 F 
 
66 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 pandemonium into a decent sheepfold. You will not 
 know the place in two years time. Our friend is liked ; 
 he is encouraged ; he is helped with pecuniary and other 
 aids. He calls in the Officer of Health and the Surveyor. 
 The wretched inmates of this spot are told that it is 
 proposed to improve their dwellings, and get their children 
 off their hands for the greater part of the day, so that 
 they may have their time more at their own disposal, for 
 earning by manual labour what there is such a struggle 
 everywhere to get — bread. Hark ! there is the sound of 
 the hammer and the trowel. There is an exodus of swine. 
 There is a removal of the foul pollutions of ordures ; a 
 huge sewer is laid down, and efficient drainage is 
 established. The worst of the hovels are pulled down ; 
 the better ones are improved ; all have a uniform appear- 
 ance of cleanliness and decency. District visiting is 
 commenced, and the help of woman's earuestness, under 
 the direction of man's soberer judgment, enlisted in the 
 cause of labour and of love. Schools in due time become 
 built, and the children are taught secular as well as 
 religious knowledge — that is, fitted for both worlds instead 
 of only for one. A church is erected. Morality is every- 
 where inculcated ; the religion of Christ is preached — not 
 the doctrine of a " terrible God,"* but of a loving and 
 compassionate Saviour. Adult schools, too, are founded ; 
 education becomes retrospective, and the neglect of past 
 years in childhood is made up to the youth and young 
 
 * The frequent use of this expression in Fox's Journal, shows 
 frightfully the character of his mind and his religion. It occurs 
 too constantly in modern Quaker literature, and leaves the impres- 
 sion on one's thoughts that, according to this strange creed, God 
 takes pleasure in terrify : ng his creatures. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 67 
 
 man. The general mind is interested, apprehends, ex- 
 pands ; the upper and middle classes associate with the 
 lower, and the spirit of progress is upon everything. The 
 Sunday is not judaized into a wretched, mournful, unin- 
 teresting day, the very thought of whose return depresses 
 the young natures of childhood. But innocent and 
 healthful recreations take part in the improvement of 
 character with cheerful religious instruction. Look at 
 our moral garden now, where grew the hriar and the 
 thistles, and where the hogs (quadrupedal and bipedal) 
 did riot. Men have been taught " something of labour 
 but its degradation, something of life but its misery." 
 "Where is the drunkard now ? We have done something 
 more effectual than George Fox did, when he told an 
 inebriated tinker that he was to cure himself of his 
 beastly habit by " the light spoken of in the 3rd chapter 
 of John." {Journal.) We know human nature well enough 
 to be certain that if we withdraw one powerful stimulant 
 we must substitute another of some kind. We have 
 therefore substituted the incentive to learning, and the 
 love of social amusements, for whisky ; and the slave to 
 intemperance is trying to make out how it is that the 
 earth spins round like a top, and the sun rises and sets 
 every day. Astronomy versus Alcohol ! The profane, 
 the profligate, the scolding mothers, who were wont to 
 frighten their children into obedience and a lie, are 
 changed likewise, and everything has put on the appear- 
 ance of health and vigour. These children, too, grow up, 
 willing sons and faithful daughters. They marry and are 
 given in marriage. They beget another generation to come 
 after them — a generation which has a better start in life 
 than its predecessor, but which can hardly make a 
 nobler finish. Thus you see a soulless, godless, swinish, 
 
 f 2 
 
68 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 pestilential district has become a spot over which men 
 and angels rejoice; and this all — not by constant indi- 
 vidual appeals for spiritual guidance, and for the display 
 of some miraculous intervention; but by a regular and 
 systematic adoption of the appointed means — means which, 
 modified and adapted to various local idiosyncrasies, and 
 to the manners and customs of various countries, will any- 
 where, in different measure, produce like results. Every 
 sequence should flow directly and naturally from its 
 antecedent — "the grain, the blade, the full ear;" every 
 antecedent should suggest the requirement of the inevit- 
 able sequence. This is what may follow from a recognition 
 of human instrumentality, remembering that all human 
 agencies are directly of God's appointment. They are 
 the links between earth and heaven, forged by God above, 
 let down to us by the light of Natural, and riveted below 
 by the light of Revealed, Religion. 
 
 This appreciation of life's uses and capabilities is what 
 will alone fit us for another service, and a higher state of 
 existence. Can any triumph of this kind be developed 
 out of Barclay's Apology ? Is there any Quaker sickle 
 which can cut down such a golden harvest as we have 
 here before us? And will any one affirm that this is 
 not a true picture of what may be witnessed in many 
 parishes ? * I do not say — very far from it — that this 
 
 * It is extraordinary how very small a proportion the real 
 practical good effected in a parish sometimes bears to the spiritual 
 exaltation of its pastor. Whereas it quite as frequently happens 
 that a man of much less exalted standard, may have such a tact, 
 such a knowledge of human nature, such an aptitude for organiza- 
 tions, and for applying remedial agents to moral and spiritual 
 diseases, as to far outstrip his really more evangelical brother. 
 There can be no stronger argument against the Quaker doctrine 
 
 * 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 69 
 
 sort of work is peculiar to the Church of England, though 
 I think that she has opportunities of doing it which are not 
 equally afforded to any other section of religionists in this 
 country, because she is under the protection of the State, 
 and has larger funds at her disposal. It may be achieved 
 by any sect which, recognizing the institution, and appre- 
 hending the wisdom, of that law which equally obtains in 
 the physical, moral, and spiritual world — that certain 
 results flow with undeviating precision from certain ante- 
 cedents ; that we have the power (this power constituting 
 our superiority over the rest of animated nature) of placing 
 ourselves under the influence of these laws, and therefore 
 under the beneficial influence of their results — strives 
 incessantly and labours earnestly, for the meat which does 
 not perish, and the water which flows from perennial 
 streams. Whether these achievements are likely to be 
 effected — whether these results are likely to be brought 
 about, in their more comprehensive entirety, by an 
 organised ministry, is a matter of opinion, the reception 
 of which is regulated by the experience of mankind. We 
 know very well what that experience affirms, and that 
 the Apologist, and those who embrace his views, cannot 
 negative positive results by citing the prophet Jeremiah 
 to the exaltation of a wild and visionary theory. And if 
 
 which we are now discussing. Two of the most perfectly organized 
 parishes I ever heard of — parishes which showed the effect of such 
 organization in every way— were the labour of men largely gifted 
 with the tact I have above alluded to, but whose moral conduct was 
 in many senses highly reprehensible. The fact is these too exalted 
 spiritualists are essentially unpractical and unsympathizing. They 
 don't like the dirty work. They " desire to depart and be with 
 Christ, which is far better," before they have any right to desire it. 
 William Penn, be it observed, wrote a book called " No Cross, no 
 Crown." 
 
70 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 he says, " I sent them not nor commanded them, there- 
 fore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the 
 Lord," we can appeal to a more modern, and equally good 
 authority, and affirm that " Go teach all nations" is a 
 positive mandate from the Fountain Head to a recognized 
 and appointed ministry. 
 
 The very history of the Society of Friends is surely a 
 confirmation of the views here advanced as to the powerless- 
 ness of such a system to sustain itself. Compare it with 
 the History of the Church of England, or of the leading 
 Nonconformist bodies, and see if it is not so. "What has 
 Quakerism, as such, ever done for the world ? Absolutely 
 nothing. The philanthropic achievements of its individual 
 members have been distinct repudiations of their own 
 principles, a recognition of other religious communities, 
 and a fraternization with those out of the pale of their own 
 Eclectisism. 
 
 Quakerism has never been anything more than an ab- 
 stract idealism, aspiring to fructuate in heaven, but refusing 
 to strike its roots into that earthly soil, which is watered 
 from above, and sunned by the many beautiful influ- 
 ences with which God has surrounded us. The legiti- 
 mate use of these things is our preparatory discipline, 
 and will, through grace and mercy, constitute our pass- 
 port to the Heavenly Canaan. Quakerism is now scarcely 
 more an objective fact than was Barclay's ill-defined 
 Spiritualism an "objective revelation." And yet Fox 
 wanted to overturn every religion; and Quakers, from 
 his time downwards, have shown by their miserable 
 exclusiveness, in what light they looked upon all reli- 
 gionists who differed from themselves. When I say 
 Quakers I mean the followers of Fox, the upholders of 
 " ancient principles," and of the wretched idea that the 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 71 
 
 true light only shines upon that exclusive path which 
 leads into dreary and unsympathizing mazes, apart from 
 " the world." It is not necessary to return to " primitive- 
 ness" in order to establish the evidence of faith, and 
 earnestness, and zeal. There is nothing primitive now 
 save that starched and decreasing sect into which has 
 subsided the vehemence of Fox's blustering band. A full- 
 blown Quaker in Piccadilly, and a Bishop in a wig, are 
 about the only anomalies now (and they but very rarely) 
 to be encountered. The time for camel-hair girdles about 
 the loins, and of locusts and wild honey for daily food, is 
 gone by for ever. And surely religious zeal is as great, 
 religious labour as consistent, and in many cases as disin- 
 terested (making due allowance for the difference in 
 Society then and now), as it was for years after that 
 voice which heralded the world's Redeemer was heard 
 crying in the wilderness. The "poor fishermen," be it 
 remembered, who " toiled all night and caught nothing," 
 had not so very much to lose when they forsook their nets, 
 and followed their Divine Master ; and circumstances did 
 not expose them to the same internal struggle as the young 
 man who " went away sorrowing, for he had great posses- 
 sions." It is enough, however, that they obeyed the call, 
 and became the channels through which flowed, from the 
 first source, the first streams of revelation and of truth. 
 But the considerations above hinted at are to be borne in 
 mind when we are called upon to estimate the disinterested- 
 ness of men; and we may do so without in any sense 
 underrating apostolic excellence, or impugning the sa- 
 credness of primitive Christianity. The Apostles, however, 
 were men, as they soon proved themselves to be, possessed 
 of about the usual amount of human weaknesses. One 
 denied his Lord ; another betrayed him ; all forsook him 
 
72 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 and fled in the hour of danger ; and one only was distin- 
 guished by that beautiful feature of Christian character 
 which lends grace to, and which we dignify with, the 
 name of Love. 
 
 Primitive Christianity, we repeat, is not for these times ; 
 but a Christianity educed from it, and adapted to the 
 changing temper of the age, and to the progress effected 
 in all things by civilization. Neither holy fishermen, nor 
 fanatical shoemakers, nor grotesquely clad and devotional 
 Quietists, can now evangelize this heathen world, unless 
 they embrace and utilize all the means, and all the in- 
 fluences, which have multiplied with developing and ad- 
 vancing Time. It is not sufficient to say that efforts to do 
 good are disinterested. They may be all the worse for 
 that, instead of all the better, as far as their practical 
 results are concerned, inasmuch as the disinterested may 
 not have the capacity for appreciating the benefits of their 
 own labours, and the results which accrue from them, in 
 the same measure as the interested. Xaviers are not to 
 be met with in every generation. And the more civiliza- 
 tion is extended, and our social system developed, the 
 more is evidenced our mutual dependence upon each 
 other — in other words, our freedom from disinterestedness. 
 More large, more tolerant, more sympathizing with the 
 weaknesses of others, should become every religion based 
 upon that "Volume of Volumes," which has developed 
 itself from Judaism into Christianity, and proposes the 
 latter only for our acceptance. More catholic should be 
 every creed, more " propitious in its deep inner significance 
 to human progress; ready to welcome light and truth 
 from whatever quarter approaching ; and in short to ally 
 itself complacently with all that acting beneficially on the 
 character of man, conducing to his best interests, and 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 73 
 
 cherishing his purest and nohlest aspirations, may lead 
 him yet nearer and nearer to the goal of holiness and 
 happiness.''* 
 
 Quakerism, indeed, in one sense, was truly catholic — 
 in the desire of its founders that their principles should be 
 universal; though they had a strange way of trying to 
 make them universal. It is catholic also in its reverence 
 for some sacred things ; though it is strangely irreverent 
 in respect of other things upon which other sects place the 
 highest symbolical value and importance. But ancient 
 Quakerism was utterly antagonistic to human progress, 
 nor was it wont to welcome light from every quarter; 
 nor was it in any sort associated with man's highest duties, 
 or noblest performances. And I am sure that the re- 
 corded history of the best of early and of modern Quakers 
 does not bear out the assertion that this creed is inti- 
 mately connected with " happiness." There is no reli- 
 gious happiness where there is no peace. And there is 
 no peace where a wretched introverting system, which 
 substitutes emotional for practical religion, sets up for us 
 a capricious standard, and tears our feelings to rags and 
 tatters, because we cannot sustain that spiritual exaltation 
 to-day which by fortuitous circumstances (the state of the 
 barometer or the mucous membrane of the stomach) was 
 generated yesterday. 
 
 However disinterested, then, Quakers may have been ; 
 however much they may have desired to promote the 
 religious welfare of mankind, their principles were antago- 
 nistic to their desires, inasmuch as they ignored the provi- 
 dence of human instrumentalities, aud closed their eyes to 
 
 * The Principles of Ancient Quakerism, with reference to the sup- 
 posed Decadence of the Society of Friends. Loudon, 1858, p. 8. 
 
74 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 objective facts, which others dreamed not of resisting. 
 Speaking of his favourite geological science, Hugh Miller 
 very properly condemns those who are so " obstinate or so 
 timid as to refuse the acceptance of a physical truth in evi- 
 dence, because it interferes, or seems to interfere, with the 
 traditionary interpretation of Scripture." And in the same 
 way Quakers are to be condemned, because they are so 
 persistent in putting interpretations upon particular pas- 
 sages of the Bible, which the great majority of Christians 
 repudiate, and which all history, and their own decadence, 
 directly negative. That is a poor religion which necessi- 
 tates the " clipping of facts (as Mr. Kingsley somewhere 
 expresses it) to shape to doctrines." These arguments are 
 specially applicable to this subject of the ministry. An 
 "organized instrumentality" is essential to religious pro- 
 gress in a huge and mixed community : the evidence of our 
 senses affirms and proves it. Nothing of the kind, says 
 the Society of Friends : yet they are tumbling to pieces 
 under our very eyes, and refuse to accept the evidence of 
 their senses as to the combined causes of their decline. 
 
 Of course it is not pretended that circumstances do not 
 frequently obtain, in connexion with the institution of 
 trained individuals for the ministry, which give a powerful 
 handle to those who embrace Quaker doctrines.* Men, 
 from motives of self-interest peculiar to most of us, put on 
 the (supposed or real, according to individual views) here- 
 
 * The writer of this Essay once met in a billiard room, at half- 
 past eleven o'clock on a Saturday night, a youth almost in a state 
 
 of inebriation, who was ordained by the Bishop of at eleven 
 
 o'clock on the following morning. This noble aspirant to the Apos- 
 tolic toga had been twice plucked at Oxford, where he was equally 
 distinguished for the paucity of his brains and the licentiousness of 
 his conduct. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 75 
 
 ditary mantle, and go forth to an expectant parish in all 
 the splendour of a full-blown phylactery. But general 
 inferences are not to be drawn from exceptional facts, 
 touching this initiatory process; and it is necessary to 
 bear constantly in mind (what has been previously stated) 
 that the good effected in the cause of religion is sometimes 
 almost in an inverse ratio to the piety of the instrument, 
 just as occasionally — nay, very often, the greatest indis- 
 cretions are perpetrated, to the damage of many brethren, 
 by excellent ministers, for lack of that peculiar tact, that 
 generous expansiveness, that perception of the require- 
 ments of their own epoch, which are so essential to har- 
 monious working, and thereby to constant progression. 
 It has been so in the varied fields of science and the arts ; 
 it has been so in the philosophy of moral teachings; it 
 has been so in every profession; and it is so in the 
 Lord's spiritual vineyard. I have seen great big Christian 
 Masters of Arts, men once of enlarged capacity and 
 refined tastes, so narrowed and straitened by perse- 
 verance in a lean and fruitless servicial exaction, as to 
 lose all sense of the varied duties and responsibilities 
 of the social system. I have seen them pulling day by 
 day their own sheep-bell, because no one could be found 
 to do it for them, to bring out the housemaid from her 
 domestic duties, and a rheumatic old woman from her 
 comfortable cottage, to constitute a congregation — " the 
 two or three gathered together in my name." The empty 
 formality, the terrific pace, the frigid character of the 
 entire proceeding, have startled me into wonderment as 
 to that deteriorated condition into which men may be 
 reduced by a superstitious thraldom, and a misapprehen- 
 sion as to the proper usage of our time and capabilities. 
 Why, so strange is this infatuation about religion con- 
 
76 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 sisting in nothing but a monotonous round of " daily 
 services," that there are earnest and excellent men now 
 in London and elsewhere, carrying out this system, of 
 which they fail to see the unadaptiveness to the moral and 
 spiritual wants of the community, and the utter futility of 
 which they attribute to their own waut of perseverance 
 and zeal, rather than to the violation of ordinary and 
 obvious principles. They have no sympathy with their 
 kind; they have no sympathy indeed with anything but 
 the wretched formality which they strive to set up, and 
 bid men fall down and worship. "Without a large aud 
 general sympathy it is impossible to construct a Christian 
 character, or to humanize a Godless people. To these 
 men, the use which others make of these tame sup- 
 plicatory forms is the standard by which they gauge 
 spirituality. A more degrading and unexpansive system 
 it is impossible to conceive than one which excludes sym- 
 pathy, because it is a non-recognition of that variety of 
 character, and therefore that variety of treatment, which 
 constitutes and is needed for society. " It has produced 
 numbers of people walking up and down one narrow plank 
 of self-restraint, pondering over their own merits and de- 
 merits, keeping out, not the world exactly, but their 
 fellow-creatures from their hearts, and caring only to 
 drive their neighbours before them on this plank of theirs, 
 or to push them headlong."* What ! have we been sur- 
 rounded by so many natural beauties, have we been gifted 
 with so many natural impulses towards the high and beau- 
 tiful, for no reason but that we may despise them in order 
 to fetter ourselves with a purely ecclesiastical thraldom ? 
 Can our natural bodies thrive upon one food ? Can our 
 
 * Friends in Council. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 77 
 
 intellectual natures expand upon one idea? Can our 
 moral and spiritual natures progress by monastic seclu- 
 sion from the countless floodings of God's light and glory? 
 " Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word 
 which proceedeth out of the mouth of God." And in how 
 many ways does not He speak to us, and with what varied 
 impulses has He not endowed us? And are not the 
 material and the immaterial parts of our individualities so 
 constituted, that their action is reciprocal, and their de- 
 pendence mutual ? If we neglect the one a sensible result 
 is imparted to the other.* Just as there are certain vege- 
 tables which, without having any actual nutritive proper- 
 ties, are capable of yielding elementary principles which 
 refresh and invigorate our material natures, so there are 
 
 * " The experiments upon which men have ventured with religion 
 resemble those which the curiosity of the chemist has led him to 
 try with light. The sunshine, or white light, is best adapted for 
 vegetable growth. But what, asks the man of science, if we subject 
 plants to the influence of only one of the prismatic colours of which 
 the solar ray is composed — to the red, for instance, the yellow, or 
 the blue ? Plants have been reared, accordingly, under glasses of 
 these several colours. Experiment shows that the yellow, whilst 
 yielding the largest amount of light, prevents, as might be expected, 
 the germination of seed ; the red produces the most heat, but the 
 plant is unhealthy ; beneath the blue the strongest chemical effect 
 is realized, but under this influence the strength of the plant fails to 
 keep pace with its growth. It is thus that men have separated in 
 religion those influences which ought to be combined. One class of 
 religionists will admit only light for the intellect, another only 
 warmth for the heart. Under the influence of the first the good 
 seeds must remain dead ; subject to the glowing rays of the second 
 growth is artificial and diseased. A third class, again, are less con- 
 cerned either about the light or the heat, about religion as a mere 
 idea, or religion as a mere sentiment, than they are about the secu- 
 rity of that merely chemical result — an established orthodoxy." — 
 Robert Alfred Vaughan. , 
 
78 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 many influences which largely affect for good the moral 
 and spiritual parts of us, and bring about that harmonious 
 action, which is the type of all God's dealings with His 
 creatures. Hence the great advantage of mixing in 
 society and in the world : hence the benefit of studying all 
 natural phenomena; hence the advantage of travelling 
 in many lands, and viewing nature under every variety 
 of aspect. Who so large-hearted, who so sympathizing, 
 who so tolerant of the opinions of others, as he who has 
 travelled and observed ? Is it not given to him to ascend 
 higher, and to feel nobler impulses, than the wretched 
 slave who gallops thrice a day through a monotonous lip- 
 service, and averages three old women and a boy for his 
 congregation ? O that some of the Rubrical worshippers 
 of " Holy Mother Church," would but expand their na- 
 tures, and obstruct not their highest impulses by perse- 
 vering in a fruitless formality, to which the cold irresponsive 
 apathy of the people shows its miserable unadaptiveness ! 
 
 And with respect to the Ministration of Women. This 
 question, be it remarked at the outset, does not turn upon 
 whether the doctrine has or has not the sanction of St. 
 Paul. It is not a religious, but a social question of the 
 19th century, on which St. Paul is no more an authority 
 to be appealed to than on a question affecting any of the 
 physical sciences. St. Paul did not know (how should 
 he ?) that the earth went round the sun, any more than he 
 knew that British Legislators 1800 years after his day 
 would object to the admission of Jews, though they should 
 be never so indifferent about Infidels, to Parliament, for 
 fear of endangering the Christian character of the country. 
 But it is quite certain that he recognized for the weaker 
 sex the primary importance of domestic duties, and social 
 
A FALLEN" FAITH. 
 
 7!) 
 
 obligations (which have wonderfully multiplied since his 
 time), when he said : " I will therefore that the younger 
 women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none 
 occasion to the adversary to speak reproach fully.''' Nor was 
 he insensible of the tendency of a morbid system to make 
 women " learn to be idle, wandering about from house to 
 house ; and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busybodies, 
 speaking things which they ought not." 
 
 Our lessons as to what is best upon a social subject of 
 this character, are to be gathered from our knowledge of 
 human nature in general, and female nature in particular. 
 It is a plain practical question. Do you or I know any 
 woman, however excellent, however spiritually gifted, who 
 would be likely to benefit a Christian community by 
 publicly officiating in church or chapel ? Would her 
 moral or spiritual condition, would her sense of female 
 modesty (which no woman can afford to trifle with) be 
 injured or improved by such a course ? Would she 
 advance the cause of virtue and religion, by usurping to 
 herself an office for which it is almost certain she has an 
 intuitive perception of unfitness, which she endeavours to 
 stifle, by a forced interpretation of the letter of Scripture ? 
 And it must be remembered here, that one of the great 
 beauties of the Christian scheme, and of the sublime 
 narrative which records it, is that it does adapt itself to 
 all our wants, our sympathies, our weaknesses, and presents 
 to us doctrines which are 'm accordance with the perceptions 
 of our moral nature. 
 
 It suggests itself to 4999 men out of every 5000 that, 
 from the comparatively emotional character of women, it 
 is neither prudent, nor right, nor necessary, to expose 
 them to an ordeal from which almost every well-regulated 
 female would shrink with horror. And it is no profanity 
 
80 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 to state that if St. Paul had known as much of the nature 
 of the weaker sex as we know in the present day, when 
 he wrote his Epistles, he would have mapped out in 
 language of the clearest and most intelligible kind, — 
 that is in language which no one could doubt — woman's 
 subordinate ministerial position. Unfortunately, as regards 
 both sexes, the admission of the doctrine of an immediate 
 spiritual call to oral communication, necessitates the inevit- 
 able result, through our manifold weaknesses, of such 
 communication bearing an exact ratio to the intensity of 
 our emotion, and the morbid character of our piety. 
 
 Joseph John Gurney frequently lamented, as one of the 
 chief causes of deterioration in the Society of which he 
 was so consistent a member, that women's ministerings 
 had of late years greatly exceeded those of their (implied) 
 lords and masters. Mrs. Fry had doubts about the pro- 
 priety of pastoral obtrusiveness in her sex. " I see many 
 difficulties attached to it (my calling a meeting in London), 
 and perhaps none so much as my great fear of women 
 coming too forward in these things, beyond what the 
 Scripture dictates."' 55 ' Comparatively inferior men, as Are 
 have before pointed out, may often have a special aptitude 
 for organizing means which are always more or less instru- 
 mental, under providential arrangements which are legibly 
 recorded, in bringing about moral and spiritual improve- 
 ment. Quakers deny this ; but facts affirm it positively. 
 Knowledge of Scripture is a useless weapon, wherewith to 
 combat the huge wickedness of our social system, if it be 
 not sharpened by a thorough knowledge of human nature, 
 and an aptitude for discerning at a glance the idiosyncrasies 
 of individual man. It will be granted, I suppose, that 
 ■women have less discernment of character than men, that 
 
 * Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry, vol. ii., p. 140. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 SI 
 
 they have less judgment, and less experience of life's 
 hardships and difficulties. " God," said Luther, "in the 
 beginning made but only one human creature, which was 
 a wise council : afterwards He created also a woman ; then 
 came the mischief." Admitting the truth, without en- 
 dorsing the satire, of this observation, one cannot but 
 reflect how frequently a want of tact, and a little petty way 
 of treating even a small matter, do produce an incalculable 
 amount of evil. The revelations of the domestic life of the 
 Society of Friends do not constitute exceptional testimony 
 to that which is evidenced by other social and religious 
 bodies. Woman is the weaker vessel, say what you will : 
 and she is never so weak as when she is out of her proper 
 place, and striving therein to display her strength. 
 
 Women, moreover, from constitutional infirmities pecu- 
 liar to the sex, from the certainty of periodical interruptions 
 to habitual service, and from various other combinations, 
 are absolutely powerless for the efficient work of the 
 ministry. How can they regulate others, when in matters 
 of feeling (and religion and feeling are synonymous terms 
 with the most pious Quakers) they cannot regulate them- 
 selves ? And what a source it is to gather your religion 
 from — what a fountain from which to draw living waters — 
 an ill-regulated and highly sensitive mind, constantly 
 absorbed in the " circle of profitless spiritual delights and 
 conflicts ! " 
 
 There is nothing more clearly marks the fanatical 
 character of the great religious (so called] movement of 
 the 17th century, than the number of emotional enthusi- 
 astic women who felt themselves " called " to forsake their 
 legitimate and useful occupations, to flock round an 
 unmanageable and illiterate leader. Young uneducated 
 girls, at a time when the mind is peculiarly susceptible to 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 religions impressions, and prone, upon the slightest undue 
 stimulus, to give those impressions an exaggerated and 
 unhealthy character, were then, as now, peculiarly obnox- 
 ious to the influence of an extravagant and "frothy pietism." 
 The mischief done to these poor unhappy creatures by the 
 monstrous evils of a certain form of (what is called — God 
 forgive me for so perverting the word) " evangelical " 
 preaching, is beyond the cognizance of those who have no 
 experience of the life of lunatics. I swear I have seen in 
 one Asylum, at one time, maddened by one popular 
 preacher, whose name will suggest itself at once without 
 my mentioning it — three young girls, believing themselves 
 to be "in the blackness of darkness for ever." Their look of 
 utter and unredeemed despair is beyond all power of verbal 
 expression. The lies that are uttered from our pulpits 
 every Sunday, by earnest and well-meaning ignorance, 
 throughout the length and breadth of this land, are 
 beyond all calculation or conception. It would be 
 well if they who do these things would but remember 
 what was said by a great preacher — one of Nature's High 
 Priests, endowed with the most comprehensive power of 
 thought and observation — " In the treatment of nervous 
 (which is generally only another name for moral) diseases, 
 he is the best Physician who is the most ingenious inspirer 
 of hope." I would rather believe Coleridge than these 
 Biblical exponents, who, whatever " faith " they may have, 
 certainly have neither " hope," nor " charity." 
 
 We cannot do better than illustrate the unhealthi- 
 ness and unprofitableness of religious excitement by a 
 reference to the career of a woman of whom the Society of 
 Friends may well be proud. Let us see what was the 
 habitual state of her mind ; and recollect that she was not 
 only one of the first among Female Ministers, but one of the 
 uoblest women that ever lived. We think of her, and are 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 83 
 
 chiefly familiar with her, in connexion with Newgate, and 
 her noble philanthropic mission to that pestilential den. 
 But I shall take you for a few minutes to that tell-tale of 
 the inmost heart — the Journal, and show you what shreds 
 and tatters were her convulsed feelings ; what self-inflicted 
 agonies she subjected herself to, and what a chaos was the 
 spiritual part of her nature. So, alas ! may it happen that 
 there is no " light in dark places," even to the " godly." 
 
 And I must embrace this opportunity of stating, that so 
 thoroughly morbid do I consider the Journal and Letters 
 of Mrs. Fry, as a whole, in spite of many nobly redeeming 
 passages, that I should deem myself guilty of administering 
 moral poison of a most dangerous character, to any young 
 persons, by putting before them the documents alluded to. 
 It is grievous to be compelled to say this of such a large- 
 hearted philanthropist as she was — of one whose memory 
 will go down to posterity in the " fragrance of blessings." 
 Nor do I except from this condemnation the records of her 
 excellent brother, whose Journal and Letters reveal a far 
 more frightful state of mental disquietude than those of 
 Mrs. Fry. I should imagine that no autobiography has 
 ever been given to the world, containing more painful 
 disclosures of distress of mind (an educated and religious 
 mind), than the one which has been most conscientiously 
 edited by Mr. Braithwaite.* And I protest, that if I had 
 a child old enough to understand it, I would not put this 
 Memoir into his hands, for all I hold dear. I would not 
 let him see what harsh and forbidding features the Gospel 
 may assume, under misdirection and perversion. I would 
 
 * Memoirs of Joseph John Gur>ie>/, &c. &c. Edited by J. B. Braith- 
 waite. 2 vols. 8vo., 1854. 
 
 I shall take occasion, in a subsequent part of this Essay, to support 
 my opinions, by reference to the above work, and by a brief sketch 
 of Gurney's life. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 not let him know of the " terrors of the Lord," or of God's 
 " great awfulness;' 1 but I would lead him rather to woo 
 Religion through ways which are ways of pleasantness, 
 and paths which are paths of peace. And yet, such is the 
 anomalous character of high-class Quaker piety, that I am 
 compelled to make these remarks of a man whose indi- 
 vidual excellence is above praise, and whose desire to act 
 with singleness of purpose, and with an eye only to God's 
 glory, was never surpassed. 
 
 Let it be observed that Mrs. Fry begins that pernicious 
 system of journalising her feelings, before she is sixteen 
 years of age. Before she is seventeen she writes : " My 
 mind is in a state of fermentation. I believe I am going 
 to be religious, or some such thing." Again : " I am a 
 bubble without reason, without beauty of mind or person. 
 I am a fool." At another time : " My imagination has 
 been worked upon j and I fear all that I have felt will go 
 off." These extracts from the very commencement of her 
 career show clearly the unhealthfulness of the system into 
 which she was initiated, and the false ideas which ultimately 
 maddened her into misery. The notion which prevailed in 
 her mind in respect of entering the ministry was not highly 
 salutary, and was surely rather struggling against the 
 " Spirit :" — " Being a minister is an awful practice, from 
 which my whole nature recoils. 11 The following extracts 
 show the strange alternations of religious passion, occasional 
 glimpses of serenity and peace, and an almost maniacal de- 
 spair: "A sweet inward covering over the meeting. 11 "It was 
 a very melting interview." " Yesterday was to me an awfully 
 affecting day." " I feel at times deeply pressed down on 
 account of my beloved children. Their volatile minds try 
 me." " Much pressed down in spirit for many days past." 
 " In this low state even the grasshopper becomes a burden 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 S3 
 
 to me." fl Nervous lowness of spirit, and much mental 
 fear." " My heart feels very full ; my body, I, believe lias 
 trembled ever since I rose to meet the party now assembled.'''' 
 " My spirit was much overwhelmed within me." " Oh ! how 
 do I see rocks on every hand." " In the night I had a deep 
 plunge, making me exceedingly low and nervous." " In a 
 portion of prostration, and deep abasement of spirit." " The 
 enemy appeared to come in like a flood." " Much stripping 
 and deep poverty has at times been my portion." " I felt 
 a little ray of comfort this morning in these words — ' My 
 King and my God. 1 " " My soul has travailed much in the 
 deeps." " A heavy cloud passed over me." " My spirit is 
 brought deeply prostrate within me." " I seldom remember 
 being less able to come at divine consolation. The Bible 
 is a sealed book to me."* " I have had some atcfal plunaings 
 and deep xoadinys about it (the Carriage of her daughter), 
 though no doubt it is a providential opening for her." 
 " Yesterday at Meeting the Truth rose into much domi- 
 nion." " I have had fresh cause to raise my Ebenezer." 
 " On Fourth-day I passed through deep and great exercise 
 of mind, and weakness of body." " Fearful nervous mind." 
 " T/ie awful and buffeted state of my mind." " Oh, for a 
 quiet spirit ! " "I abhor myself in dust and ashes." " / 
 think for a lime I partook of perfect peace." " Flat in spirits." 
 " I am at times brought into deep conflict of spirit before 
 the Lord." "Jam in mercy favoured with a trustful hopeful 
 spirit." " Exquisitely anxious."" " There are times when the 
 tide of life is almost overpowering." Towards the close of 
 
 * " What a dreadful feeling," writes Mrs. Opie, in her Journal, 
 "for any one to feel themselves spiritually deserted and unable to 
 pray ! But then the case is one of physical as well as moral disease." 
 — Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie, by Cecilia Lucy Brightwell, 
 p. 303. Norwich, 1854. 
 
86 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 this chequered career things become worse instead of better 
 — " humiliations and conflicts " are perpetual. " Wonderful 
 rejoicings " lowness " cast down but not destroyed.' 1 ''* 
 
 Can it be wondered at that we desire to escape from 
 such a religion as this, and turn to something more heaven- 
 born and comforting ? Is it possible to present a more 
 frightful picture than the one now delineated ? What a 
 tornado of religious passion ! What ceaseless surgings of 
 troubled waters ! What records of a spasmodic despair, 
 here and there within the legitimate bounds of insanity ! 
 " True religion/' it has been beautifully said, " is never 
 spasmodic : it is calm as the existence of God. I know 
 of nothing more shocking than these attempts to substitute 
 rockets and blue-lights for Heaven's eternal sunshine." f 
 And there is nothing singular or exceptional in this good 
 lady's Journal, to distinguish it from other Journals of 
 Friends. Its revelation is a necessary sequence of the ante- 
 cedents, if attempted to be forced to the highest pitch. I 
 do not mean to say that Mrs. Fry was not by nature "highly 
 nervous. 1 ' Indeed I shall endeavour to point out presently, 
 under our more material section, that both her brother and 
 herself were largely within the influence of somatic causes of 
 depression, though I wish to guard against the misuse of the 
 term " nervous." But a happier religion would have bene- 
 ficially influenced their physical natures, and imparted that 
 serene cheerfulness which triumphs over the material and 
 the immaterial. 
 
 And (to return to our more immediate point) what 
 a fountain is a mind of the above stamp from which 
 to draw living waters ! What a channel through which 
 
 * Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry, 2 vols. 8vo. Londou, 1847- 
 t Bayard Taylor. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 87 
 
 to receive spiritual monitions ! * How little faith and 
 confidence would — how little faith and confidence ought 
 any healthful mind to place in the oral or written 
 teachings of one so tormented in mind and soul as this 
 miserable lady ! This is neither the light burden nor the 
 easy yoke to which the Saviour invited the weary and 
 heavy-laden. Nor is it that peace which passeth all under- 
 standing. The sad record, indeed, bears out fully the 
 truth of what Sydney Smith said — that " The luxury of 
 false religion is to be unhappy." " God is not a jealous, 
 childish, merciless tyrant. He is best served by a regular 
 tenor of good actions — not by bad singing, ill-composed 
 prayers, and eternal apprehensions." 
 
 It is the opinion of Quakers that he who " has a con- 
 cern" to minister by preaching, is not called upon in any 
 way to consider, with a view of " getting up," a particular 
 doctrine, or analyzing a special subject. It is enough to 
 wait for the motion of the Spirit, who shall put words into 
 the preachers mouth. Now one would have thought that 
 in the case of any " fearful nervous mind," subject to 
 " buft'etings" and "plunges" such as harassed poor Mrs. 
 Fry, there might reasonably be some modification of the 
 above tenet. For it must be obvious to any one who 
 reflects upon the subject, that many excellent and pious 
 individuals, gifted with most comprehensive views upon 
 religious matters, might be deterred by nervousness, or 
 
 * Mrs. Fry was reputed to be very " powerful " at times iu her 
 ministrations of prayer and preaching ; and strong healthy men, 
 who might creditably have displayed less weakness, frequently wept 
 under her " sweetness." William Allen records : " E. J. F. read to 
 the prisoners ; there was a solemn silence afterwards. She then 
 knelt down in supplication, and proceeded with such clearness, 
 sweetness, depth, and power that ray tears flowed freely." — Memoir 
 of William Allen, F.R.S., by James Sherman, p. 290. London, 1857. 
 
88 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 other causes, from delivering extemporaneously, what they 
 could easily commit to paper, and then read aloud with 
 calmness and deliberation. The act of writing down holy 
 thoughts, suggested by direct spiritual visitation, cannot 
 take away their efficacy, or deprive them of their 
 truthful element. If they are good to-day they are good 
 to-morrow : if they are immediate revelations to the indi- 
 vidual heart, they are not the less revelations because they 
 are transferred to paper, and because they are not directly 
 communicated to others. If there was really any kind of 
 novelty in religious thoughts^ or spiritual suggestions, it 
 would be another matter altogether. But take any lead- 
 ing doctrine of Christianity, and there can be nothing 
 fresh or original in your manner of dealing with it. 
 But one man may have a happy mode of expression, 
 either hereditary or acquired, which enables him to im- 
 part his views, with salutary effect, to other minds, quite 
 irrespective of spiritual influences, or novel suggestions.* 
 
 * I was very much struck, one " First-day eveuing" last summer, 
 by a circumstance which brought forcibly before me the dispropor- 
 tion sometimes existing between earnest zeal and the practical good 
 which it is capable of effecting. In the neighbourhood of Hanwell 
 was being constructed a branch railroad to Brentford, and certain 
 worthy individuals had advertised that they would preach every 
 Sunday, for the benefit of the poor "navvies" engaged on these 
 works. On the evening in question, a Dissenting Minister from 
 Hanwell was officiating. The burden of his sermon was : " 0, waste 
 not time ! Time is very precious. O, waste not Time. And 
 Eternity is a very awful thing. O, waste not Time ! " There were 
 occasional allusions to the blessedness of heaven, and the dreadful 
 torments of hell. But no idea was given to these men of the social 
 advantages of religion ; no practical hint was given them as to how 
 they were to proceed in their difficult path ; no practical suggestions 
 were made as to the manner of improving themselves. And that 
 not being done, it did not seem to me to be very wise or very 
 proper to talk to these poor creatures about the tortures of per- 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 89 
 
 It had surely been very profitable to Quakers, and 
 indeed to all religionists, had we accustomed ourselves to 
 deal with Scriptural truths more in the practical common- 
 sense way which we adopt with other matters. 
 
 The question of the supposed inspiration by the Spirit, 
 to one who preaches, of words exactly adapted to the 
 particular occasion of their utterance, bears precisely upon 
 this point. For instance : an exemplary Minister of the 
 Gospel, be he " a hireling" or not, says : ' My experience 
 of what are termed direct spiritual influences, as the result 
 of " silent waiting'' upon God, affirms that I can do more 
 good to myself and to others, by repudiating this doctrine, 
 and adopting means of an essentially different character, 
 for effecting religious progress. I find that my intellectual 
 faculties are keener and more apprehensive for the first 
 three hours after breakfast : I devote that time therefore 
 to a very important duty — that of composing a sermon 
 upon some subject or other. What subject shall I take 
 this week ? There have been many sudden deaths in my 
 parish lately. It is an opportunity for pressing home to 
 the living the importance of prayer and watchfulness, and 
 of considering how soon they may be numbered with the 
 dead. I can express my thoughts in writing with clear- 
 ness and precision, in the retirement of my own study ; 
 and I have not found that God is not often there present 
 with me. I cannot express them with anything like 
 
 dition. It is impossible to speak too highly of the unselfish devotion 
 of this minister, who had thus gratuitously added to his own 
 heavy official labours, the task of preaching in a broiling sun to 
 Great Western " navvies." But such efforts must be thoroughly 
 fruitless, because they do not teach anything. How much could 
 not Mr. Maurice, or Mr. Kingsley, or Mr. Binney, do with men of 
 this stamp ! They would not be content with telling them to 
 " Come to Jesus but they would tell them how to come to Him. 
 
90 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 clearness or precision if I wait till next Sunday, and trust 
 to the Spirit's sustaining power; and I know from my 
 acquaintance with human nature, that I cannot be so 
 acceptable to my congregation, when I inflict upon them 
 a jumble of loose unconnected Avords, which I could 
 scarcely recall five minutes after their delivery. I am 
 not a Spirit, preaching to angels ; but a man full of 
 weaknesses and infirmities, preaching to men and women, 
 who reside in fleshly tenements, and are clothed in the 
 garments of mortality. I shall continue, therefore, to 
 write my sermons ; and if, as I trust in God, what I do 
 write is of his teaching, it will keep very well till next 
 Sunday, and go home with force and power to the hearts 
 of many hearers. This, I maintain, is a common-sense 
 view of this socio-religious question, which Quakers have 
 entirely failed to apprehend. I ask any one to test the 
 truth of these views by experience. Let him go into a 
 Friends' Meeting-house and hear one of their ministers, 
 and then let him go and hear some such preachers as the 
 Bishop of Oxford, Mr. Hampden Gurney, Mr. Evans (of 
 Wells Street), or Mr. Binney. He will be astounded at the 
 monotonous inanities of the former, and the large com- 
 prehensiveness of the latter, and at the comparative effect 
 produced upon his own heart by their respective teachings. 
 
 The doctrine, I repeat, which repudiates an organized 
 instrumentality for ministerial purposes, relying solely 
 upon the accidental breathings of the Holy Spirit upon 
 lay members of a community, can never be maintained or 
 supported, as long as it can be made clear to demonstra- 
 tion, that religious results often bear no kind of proportion 
 to the religious earnestness and spiritual exaltation which 
 have mediately produced them ; and that the earnestness 
 is frequently greater in women than in men, by reason of 
 their tendency to emotional excitement. A man who has no 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 91 
 
 earnestness about him, and whose life is comparatively but 
 a very indifferent one, may have a happy way of putting 
 things before others which may almost ensure their eager, 
 and often their profitable, reception. This facility of im- 
 parting his knowledge and his opinions may be extended 
 to all subjects upon which he touches, and may be used 
 equally for good and bad purposes. 
 
 The grand error of nearly all religious sects lies in the 
 fact, that certain members thereof undertake that for 
 which they are manifestly unfitted by nature, under 
 the idea that their physical or mental capacities will be 
 amended by grace. And so we have ministers who think 
 to teach all things, and have not yet learned, and never 
 will learn, to teach themselves ; and whose inefficiencies are 
 recognized and forgiven because, forsooth, " they mean 
 well." What if a Doctor or a Lawyer respectively com- 
 mit themselves, by their ignorance of their profession, to 
 the damage of a patient's health, or a client's cause ? Who 
 thinks of overlooking their failing, upon the plea that they 
 " mean well" ? Why there is an action for damages, and if 
 there is no successful verdict for the plaintiff there will at 
 least be a moral lecture for the defendant from Lord 
 Campbell. " That a large class of men (says Mr. Kingsley) 
 should believe that they have the power of saving human 
 beings from endless torture by use of their tongues, and 
 then not only employ for that purpose the dull talk which 
 is to be heard in average pulpits, but also deliver th£ same 
 with a voice and manner which set a whole congregation 
 asleep, and which would destroy the custom of a barrister, 
 an auctioneer, and even a penny-pieman — this does seem 
 to me one of the most astounding facts of an enlightened 
 age."* 
 
 * Alton Locke. 
 
92 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 III. The unsatisfying and unsubstantial character of the 
 Society's form of worship. 
 
 This proposition is intimately connected with the pre- 
 ceding one. The same Spirit which prompts to preaching 
 prompts also to prayer, immediately and personally, quite 
 irrespective (according to Quaker theory) of time, place, 
 or any adventitious circumstances.* It prompts also to 
 " silent worship," a form of communication with the 
 Deity which is not adapted to the requirements of most 
 natures, and which is, therefore, rejected for other and 
 more satisfying means. 
 
 " Silent worship," as practised (or rather theorised) by 
 the Society of Friends, is utterly unsuited to a healthy 
 moral and religious condition, and serves only to minister 
 to the requirements of something essentially morbid in 
 our natures. It is a species of mental introversion which 
 leads either to spiritual self-sufficiency; or it is a sort 
 of crucial self-anatomy which distorts the object of 
 adoration, paralyses the soul, and clogs her heavenward 
 aspirations. As a system, constituting an article of Faith, 
 it is a distinct repudiation of the more legitimate channels 
 of Grace — an attempt of the most daring kind to step into 
 an immediate Presence, for which we can alone prepare 
 ourselves by mediate instrumentality. The dazzling vision 
 of " Him that sitteth on the throne " is thus made to 
 flood iu too fully upon mortal eyes ; and, without some 
 
 * " We further inlreat you, that in all your religious meetings 
 appointed for the worship of Almighty God you wait in humble 
 reverence for the influence of the Word of Life. Ee cautious not 
 to move in acts of devotion in your own will : set not forward self 
 to work, but patiently attend and wait for the gift and enlivening 
 power of the Divine Spirit ; without which your performances will 
 be unacceptable, and like those of old, of which it was said, 'Who 
 hath required this at your hand V "-174&. Rules of Discipline, p. 159. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 93 
 
 shaded interception, it blinds even that humility which yet 
 kneeleth on the " footstool." 
 
 Some early Quaker author, speaking of" silent worship/' 
 observes : " In stillness there is fulness, in fulness there 
 is nothingness, aud in nothingness are all things." — 
 (Jaffray's Diary, p. 271.) These words are said to have 
 been uttered at the first Quakers' meeting ever attended 
 by Robert Barclay, and to have made the impression 
 upon him which eventuated in the Apology. They con- 
 tain three distinct propositions, neither of which are clear 
 to unbrimmed apprehension. 
 
 One Michael de Molinos, who was chief of the sect of 
 the Quietists, and whose Spiritual Guide was printed at 
 Venice in 1685, speaks thus : "There are three kinds of 
 silence; the first is of words, the second of desires, and 
 the third of thoughts. The first is perfect ; the second 
 is more perfect ; and the third is most perfect. In the 
 first, that is of words, virtue is acquired. In the second, 
 namely of desires, quietness is attained. In the third, of 
 thoughts, internal recollection is gained. By not speak- 
 ing, not desiring, not thinking, one arrives at the true 
 and perfect mystical silence, where God speaks with the 
 soul, communicates Himself to it, and in the abyss of its 
 own depth teaches it the most perfect and exalted 
 wisdom."* Does this three-sorted Quietism receive 
 attestation from the Italian proverb — " He who speaks, 
 sows ; he who keeps silence, reaps " ? And has Carlyle 
 endorsed it when he says " Speech is silbern ; silence is 
 gold"? No: far other is that comprehensive silence — 
 for it " desires " and " thinks," desire and thought being 
 the elements of its comprehensiveness — alluded to in our 
 
 * Quoted by Clarkson in his Portraiture of Quakerism, vol. ii., 
 p. 293. 
 
94 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 sententious epigrams. Whereas, the interpretation of the 
 passage from the Spiritual Guide is this : the lower you 
 can reduce a man in the intellectual scale; the more 
 inanimate and unsympathising you can render him ; the 
 nearer you can bring him to a state of complete amentia — 
 the more intimate becomes his communion, and therefore 
 the more sure his acceptance, with God. This is what 
 Quakers call " the sublimest part of worship." 
 
 Barclay endeavours to point out the advantages of "silent 
 worship" in his usual verbose manner; and he speaks of 
 its great power to control and subdue wandering minds — 
 which is just the very thing it has no power to achieve. 
 He says : " Yea, if it fall out, that several met together be 
 straying in their minds, though outwardly silent, and so 
 wandering from the measure of Grace in themselves (which 
 through the working of the enemy and negligence of some 
 may fall out), if either one come in, or may be in, who is 
 ■watchful, and in whom the Life is raised in a great measure ; 
 as that one keeps his seat he will feel a secret travail for 
 the rest, in a sympathy with the seed, which is oppressed 
 in the other, and kept from arising by their thoughts and 
 wanderings." And he adds : " the rest will find themselves 
 secretly smitten, without words ; and that one will be as a 
 midwife, through the secret travail of his soul, to bring 
 forth the life in them; just as a little water thrown into 
 a pump brings up the rest ; whereby Life will come to be 
 raised in all, and the vain imaginations brought down, and 
 such a one is felt by the rest to minister life unto them 
 without words. 1 '* It is not more strange to consider how 
 any man whom God endowed with capacity should have 
 penned such unmeaning verbiage as the above quotation, ' 
 than it is difficult to realize the fact that men have received 
 
 * Barclay's Apulogy, prop, xi., p. 356. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 95 
 
 this nonsense as Spiritual Truth. And if you enquire how 
 they know it is Spiritual Truth, the answer, of course, is 
 "the Spirit affirms it to be so."* 
 
 Joseph John Gurney strongly insists upon the necessity 
 of silent worship, and says that the frame of mind induced 
 by it, and which suggests it, is, in some measure, at all 
 times, inherent in the true Christian. And, after quoting 
 Habbakuk and Zechariah (for whom, together with Jere- 
 miah, he has a peculiar veneration upon all manner of 
 subjects), he enquires: "What then can be more desirable 
 for us when thus assembled than literally to comply with 
 the inspired precept, and, in awful reverence of soul, to keep 
 silence before the Lord ?"f 
 
 Now, I am prepared to maintain that, as a special act 
 of worship (if worship be a proper name to give it) nothing 
 can be more unprofitable, or more liable to perversion, 
 even with minds of a superior culture, especially when 
 associated with an emotional tendency, than this advocated 
 silence. And I believe that there is greater knowledge of 
 the human mind, and of its requirements, displayed in the 
 following brief sentence from a modern Author, than in all 
 that Barclay ever wrote, or Joseph John Gurney penned : 
 "Every thought, to be really healthy, must culminate in 
 
 * One of the great advantages mentioned by Barclay, of this 
 Silent Worship, " doth appear in that it is impossible for the enemy, 
 viz. the Devil, to counterfeit it, so as for any one to be deceived or 
 deluded by him in the exercise thereof." Apology, p. 370. 
 
 The many remarks of this character to be found in Barclay, show 
 how little real knowledge he had of the human mind. All mental 
 philosophers, and all healthy religionists, are agreed that there is 
 nothing more pernicious or deceptive than a continuous system 
 of mental introversion — of silent, centric, self-communion. 
 
 t Observations on the Distinguishing Views and Practices of the 
 Society of Friends, by J. J. Gurney, p. 303. London, 1834. 
 
96 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 an act of some kind or other."*- " Very good that." It is a 
 sentence which should he hlazoned on the door-posts of 
 every introverting Religionist, every sentimental Quietist. 
 " One good action," said John Henry Newman, " is worth 
 a thousand fine thoughts." These ideas are eternal verities, 
 he they applied to religious worship or to anything else. If 
 the impulse is to worship God, the greater emhodiment we 
 can give to that act, and the more practical we can make its 
 tendency — the more real and substantial does it become. 
 Hence the advantage of alms-giving and every form of 
 objective Charity. We may in thousands of little ways 
 testify to His service who freely gave us all things, by small 
 duties, f which in themselves constitute acts of worship, and 
 make us feel how truly Dr. Arnold spoke, when he said 
 that " great thoughts underlying and animating small duties 
 is the true idea of practical Christianity." 
 
 Coleridge had some such thought as this when he 
 put the following words into the mouth of the Ancient 
 Mariner: — 
 
 " He prayeth best who loveth best, all things both great and small ; 
 For the dear God who loveth us, He niade and loveth all." 
 
 And to love Him is to be engaged in His active service 
 ("He that loveth me keepeth my commandments'' 1 ) — to be 
 ever doing something which may minister to our progress 
 and to His glory. " These are my mother, brethren, 
 sister, who do the will of my Father which is in Heaven." J 
 
 * Dr. Henry Monro. 
 
 t " J' ai toujours attache une importance extreme a ce qu'on ap- 
 pelle vulgairement les petites choses ; des attentions delicates, quand 
 elles sont persistantes, prouvent la constante occupation de la pensee." 
 — Mrs. Opie. 
 
 X It may be interesting and instructive here to record J. J. 
 Gurnty's definition of practical religion. It is the key note of all that 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 97 
 
 The general experience of mankind tends to prove that 
 it is not an easy thing to worship God in a manner which 
 yields spiritual satisfaction to the petitioner; and that the 
 more we endeavour to strip ourselves of mediate assistance, 
 
 follows in his eventful career. " 9th mo. 12th, 1834. — What is prac- 
 tical religion ? Is it not the work of God's Spirit upon the soul of 
 man, bringing it to a spiritual knowledge of the Saviour, and re- 
 deeming it from all sin?" This definition is one of the many 
 instances presented in Gurney's Life, of a substitution of feelings 
 for facts. He perpetually confounds the two, and frequently says 
 in his letters and journal that religion is a matter of feeling, 
 whereas practical religion — " pure and undefiled before God" — is a 
 matter of facts : a " visiting the fatherless and afflicted," &c. (Me- 
 moir of J. J. <?., &c). 
 
 Mrs. Fry's definition may be placed beside that of her brother. 
 In 1808 she writes to a young Friend : " True religion seems a sub- 
 ject of that great ^importance, that we must not play with it, either 
 mentally, or in word; perhaps thou wilt think it odd, but at seasons 
 / am not a friend to too manly religious thoughts ; for thoughts are 
 apt to wander and border on imagination. Religion is a deep inward 
 working of the feelings and of the heart: we must not look too much 
 for bright light on the surface of things ; but we must humbly and 
 quietly try to seek deep," &c. (Memoir of E. Fry, vol. i., p. 89.) 
 Compare these definitions with Dr. Arnold's almost epigrammatic 
 one previously mentioned. 
 
 George Fox himself has left a better definition of true religion 
 than even his disciples of these later times. The following must 
 have been penned in one of his serene moments : " True Religion i6 
 the true Rule, and right way of serving God. And religion is a 
 pure stream of righteousness, flowing from the image of God, and is 
 the life and power of God planted in the heart and mind by the 
 law of life, which briugeth the soul, mind, body, and spirit, to be 
 conformable to God, &c. This religion is from above, pure and 
 undefiled before God ; leads to visit the fatherless, widows," &c. 
 
 This is a verbose and elaborate definition. Might not as much, 
 and even more, be expressed in fewer words, by saying that True 
 Religion is the discernment and the doing of God's will ? 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 which is of God's own appointment, the more danger do 
 we incur of rendering Him very little service, and of 
 making ourselves very miserable. This is the explanation 
 of that mental distress, and terrible anguish of soul, which 
 characterize the Journals (be the lives never so excellent) 
 of so many high-class pietists. Life to them is one long 
 attempt to insulate themselves from human dependences 
 and material agents, whereas these are the very instru- 
 mentalities which God has appointed for His dealings with 
 us, the very channels through which he vouchsafes to pour 
 down upon us the most abundant measure of His grace. 
 We are fitted for no higher service yet ; we are not pre- 
 pared, save at very rare intervals, for a closer communion. 
 The continuous effort to realize God in another way than 
 by the education of all the Christian virtues, which make 
 up the perfection of the social life ; and by practical efforts 
 to subdue all our evil tendencies, is certain to produce 
 misery, because it involves the closing up of those avenues 
 to His presence through which He is only to be reached. 
 It involves, too, a constant comparison of ourselves, who 
 are imperfect, with a Being who is perfection itself — a 
 constant dissection (so to speak) of feelings, which reveal 
 Him to us as " very far off," — whereas He may really be 
 brought "very near" to all men, by a diligent use of His 
 own appointments. 
 
 " Every ambitious attempt," says Isaac Taylor, " to 
 break through the humbling conditions on which man 
 may hold communion with God must, then, fail of suc- 
 cess; since the Supreme has fixed the scene of worship 
 and converse, not in the skies, but on earth. The scrip- 
 ture models of devotion, far from encouraging vague and 
 inarticulate contemplations, consist of such utterances of 
 desire, or hope, or love, as seem to suppose the existence 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 99 
 
 of correlative feelings, and indeed of every human sym- 
 pathy, in Him to whom they are addressed."* 
 
 And the same author says again, in his usual vigorous 
 language : " There are anatomists of piety who destroy all 
 the freshness and vigour of faith and hope and charity, 
 by immuring themselves, night and day, in the infected 
 atmosphere of their own bosoms. But now let a man of 
 warm heart, who is happily surrounded with the dear 
 objects of the social affections, try the effect of a parallel 
 practice ; let him institute anxious scrutinies of his feel- 
 ings towards those whom hitherto he has believed himself 
 to regard with unfeigned love ; let him in these enquiries 
 have recourse to all the fine distinctions of a casuist, and 
 use all the profound analyses of a metaphysician, and 
 spend hours daily in pulling asunder every complex 
 emotion of tenderness that has given grace to the 
 domestic life ; and, moreover, let him journalize these 
 examinations, and note particularly, and with the scrupu- 
 losity of an accomptant, how much of the mass of his 
 kindly sentiments he has ascertained to consist of genuine 
 love, and how much was selfishness in disguise ; and let 
 him from time to time solemnly resolve to be in future 
 more disinterested and less hypocritical in his affection 
 towards his family. What, at the end of a year, would 
 be the result of such a process ? What but a wretched 
 debility and dejection of the heart, and a strangeness and 
 a sadness of the manners, and a suspension of the native 
 expressions and ready offices of zealous affection ? Mean- 
 while the hesitations, and the musings, and the upbraidings 
 of an introverted sensibility absorb the thoughts. Is it 
 then reasonable to presume that similar practices in 
 
 * Jlistory of Enthusiasm. 10th edit., ]>. 26. 
 
 ii 2 
 
100 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 religion can have a tendency to promote the healthful 
 vigour of piety ? " * 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the rejection of 
 ritual observances in the worship of Almighty God is not 
 peculiar to the Society of Friends, though scarcely any 
 Nonconformist body strips Religion so cruelly naked, and 
 exposes her in such an unprotected manner to the world, 
 as the descendants of George Fox. Personally I must 
 confess to a love for some sort of accessories in devotional 
 services. Indeed I can scarcely be devout without them ; 
 for they seem to me, if properly directed, to appeal to 
 everything lofty and beautiful in our natures. And these 
 accessories are undoubtedly furnished by all that is grand 
 and beautiful in the natural world. I do not say that 
 there are not those who can do without such assistance ; 
 but I do say that such persons are not to be envied. 
 They may worship God as well in a barn or in a balloon 
 as in the " dim cathedral aisle." Be it so. Such cases are 
 certainly exceptional, and I do not think they obtain, as a 
 general rule, where there has been much mental culture, or 
 moral and intellectual refinement. And the feelings which 
 lead to a barren worship do not accord with the sublimest 
 notions which we are led to form of the High and Lofty 
 One who inhabiteth Eternity, nor with the ideas which we 
 entertain of that state of being which will constitute the 
 reality of His beatific presence, in the world beyond the 
 grave. 
 
 It is wonderful, indeed, and consoling likewise, to con- 
 
 * Natural History of Enthusiasm. 10th edition, pp. 32, 3. 
 
 This passage expressed accurately the hurtful results of that 
 system which though not confined to, more largely characterises, the 
 religion of Quakers than the religion of any other denomination. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 101 
 
 sider how largely we are sometimes influenced for good, in 
 the mere reading of Scripture, in prayer, in contemplation, 
 by the accessories of objective facts or subjective asso- 
 ciations ; and what an advantage minds susceptible of such 
 impressions have over the barren believers in the nudity of 
 an insular worship ! None of these helps are to be de- 
 spised with impunity ; they are themselves revelations of 
 God, and we may be sure that a full recognition of their 
 value is the truest acknowledgment of our own weakness, 
 and of our belief in the marvellous fusion of Divine with 
 human sympathy. Who that Las ever lost father, wife, or 
 child, cannot realise more fully than he who has experienced 
 no social disruptions the language of the bereaved Psalmist, 
 when he says :• — " I shall go to him, but he shall not return 
 to me " ? The actual association of death, with one indi- 
 vidual, constitutes an accessory fact which places before 
 him David's outpouring more fully than before another. 
 It is the same feeling which affects us in respect of a par- 
 ticular building, or a particular town, or a particular name. 
 A chord of wonderful sympathy is made to vibrate, and to 
 subdue our moral or spiritual natures into a condition 
 more meet for the reception of the Divine afflatus, than 
 they otherwise could have been. Is there anything wrong 
 or superstitious in this ? Do not our natures, wonderfully 
 varied as they are, respond affirmatively, and almost 
 universally, to this magic influence of association ? And is 
 that man to be commended or envied who, for the sake of 
 what he calls a principle, and because it has been written 
 that God " dwelleth not in temples made with hands," 
 could go into Westminster Abbey with his hat on, and say 
 that it was no better than any other building ? Psha ! If 
 it has not been consecrated by priestly offices, it has been 
 consecrated by the veneration of ages, by the scenes inter- 
 
102 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 woven with our history which have been there enacted, 
 and by the mighty dead who lie buried within its walls. 
 Need a man be any the worse for yielding to such in- 
 fluences as these ? Does the "spirit" answer f yes?' Then 
 the spirit does not always bear witness to the truth. And 
 are Ave to believe that there is any one who could now 
 stand in the Fincio Gardens, at Rome, and gaze upon 
 
 " The Niobe of nations, where she stands 
 Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe," 
 
 and not think of her marvellous history, and her pre- 
 sent shame ? Is there any one who could wander over 
 the plains of Jordan, or enter Gethsemane's garden, or 
 climb the rugged path along which toiled the " Great 
 Sufferer," and not be pierced with the memory of his 
 affliction? Should not any decently instructed mind, 
 without even a claim to refinement, find itself, by rea- 
 son of an association which may be instrumental to 
 religious impressions, more interested in the Imperial 
 City, and its wondrous story ; more deeply sensible 
 of the Saviour's agony, the tears, the crucifixion, the 
 bitter cry, than he had ever been before ? The man who, 
 worshipping independently and silentially, denies such in- 
 fluences as our natures are susceptible of, through agencies 
 of the above character, is not a man, for he repudiates 
 humanities ; he is not a spirit, for he ignores the humbling 
 conditions of spiritual elevation. And so, dangling between 
 the material and the immaterial, and satisfied as to neither, 
 he makes himself perpetually miserable in this world ; and 
 he will assuredly find some sort of disappointment at the 
 energizing and active joys of the world to come. 
 
 There are few things more interesting than to trace the 
 effect — the involuntary effect — produced upon some edu- 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 103 
 
 cated and highly cultivated natures, which had imbibed the 
 notion that there was an unpardonable weakness in yield- 
 ing to these soul-stirring influences. My observation leads 
 me to remark that our Transatlantic brethren have a 
 peculiar pride in resisting the claims of ancient, and par- 
 ticularly of classic, memories. The ablest of modern 
 American travellers has, to his credit, recorded, in his most 
 recent work, how completely he was overpowered by " con- 
 ventional sentiment" (as he expresses it), which he felt 
 certain he had the power of counteracting. We are upon 
 the shores of classic Greece, we are in the dead capital of 
 that once favoured land, and in sight of its marvellous 
 Acropolis. We are under the Doric pillars of the Pro- 
 pylcea, and mounting the steps where Pericles walked. 
 " And not only Pericles, but the curled Alcibiades, the 
 serene Plato, the unshaken Socrates, the divine Phidias, 
 Sophocles and iEschylus, Herodotus and Themistocles, 
 and — but why mention names, when the full sunshine of 
 that immortal era streams upon our pathway ? And what 
 is it to me (breaks in the half-subdued indifferentist) 
 that they have walked where I now walk ? Let me not 
 be wheedled out of my comfortable indifference by the 
 rhythmic ringing of such names. The traveller comes 
 here, expecting to be impressed by the associations of the 
 spot, and by a strong effort he succeeds in impressing 
 himself. Repeat the same names for him elsewhere, and 
 he will produce the same effect. But for me, I am hardened 
 against conventional sentiment. I have seen too much to 
 be easily moved ; I can resist the magic of ancient memories, 
 no matter how classic. What is it me that Pericles walked 
 up those steps ; that the gilded robes of Aspasia swept the 
 Pentilican marbles ; that Phidias saw the limbs of a god in 
 the air, or Sophocles chanted a chorus as he walked ? They 
 
104 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 were men, and I am a man too, probably in many respects 
 as good as they. Had I lived in their time, I should, no 
 doubt have looked upon them without the least awe, have 
 slapped them on the back, and invited them to dinner. 
 Now, why should their ghosts shake me with weak emotion, 
 and rob me of my cool judgment ? No! I shall be in- 
 different. So meditating, I walked up the steps." But it 
 would not do. Gradually steals over the matter-of-fact 
 traveller the magic of overpowering memories. What 
 with the wondrous ruins, " the olive groves of the Aca- 
 demy," " the pass of Daphne, and the blue hills of Sala- 
 mis," and the inhalation of the "perfect harmony" of 
 the entire picture, he reveals to us the subjugation of 
 his entire nature. After a beautiful description of the 
 whole scene, he says : — " Once having looked upon the 
 Parthenon, it was impossible to look elsewhere, and I 
 drew nearer and nearer, finding a narrow lane through 
 the chaos of fragments piled almost as high as my head, 
 until I stood below the Western front. I looked up at the 
 Doric shafts, colossal as befitted the shrine of a goddess, 
 yet tender and graceful as flower-stems, upholding without 
 effort the massive entablature, and the shattered pediment, 
 in one corner of which two torsos remain of all the chil- 
 dren of Phidias, and — to my confusion I must confess it — 
 all my fine resolves were forgotten ; I was seized with an 
 overpowering mixture of that purest and loftiest admiration, 
 which is almost the same thing as love, and of unmitigated 
 grief and indignation. Well — consider me a fool if you 
 like — but, had I been alone, I should have cast myself 
 prone upon the marble pavement, and exhausted in some 
 hysterical way the violence of this unexpected passion." 
 " These blocks of sunny marble (our author eloquently 
 continues) were piled upon each other, to the chorus of the 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 105 
 
 same song which the seasons sing in their ordered round, 
 and the planets in their balanced orbits. The cheerful 
 gods are dethroned; the rhythmic pulsations of the jubi- 
 lant religion which inspired this immortal work have died 
 away, and earth will never see another Parthenon." " I 
 will not say a word against the solemnities of Gothic art, 
 which Mr. Ruskin declares to be the only religious form 
 of architecture ; but, I ask, is there no joy, no cheerful- 
 ness, no comfort, no hopeful inspiration in our religion ? 
 If there is, God has no better temple on earth than the 
 Parthenon. Atheistic ? prove it, and you glorify Atheism. 
 You may take models of the Parthenon at home, you may 
 take drawings and photographs, and build up any super- 
 transcendental theory out of such materials. Then come 
 here, stand in the midst of its ruin, listen to the august voice 
 which yet speaks from the sunburnt marbles, and unless 
 you be one of those narrow souls who would botanize 
 on his mother's grave, you will fall down upon your kuees 
 and repent of your sins."* 
 
 And this leads me to observe, that any form of religion 
 which refuses to recognize as an essential part of its insti- 
 tution the cultivation of all the social virtues — which 
 withdraws from the innocent pleasures and recreations 
 which Nature suggests to us, and for the enjoyment of 
 which Nature's God has fitted us — must have some strange 
 misapprehension as to that future state of existence whither 
 we are all hastening. For surely it is more wise and 
 more refining to believe, with respect to a subject about 
 which nothing certain has been revealed to us, that the 
 future life will be, as it were, a growing out from, and a 
 development of, the present one. All analogy seems to 
 
 * Travels in Greece and Russia, by Bayard Taylor. London aud 
 New York. 1859, pp. 37-41. 
 
106 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 favour such a belief, and the moral perceptions of the 
 natural man seem, for the most pai't, to point to such a 
 beautiful and harmonious theory. According to this view, 
 we shall carry with us into the untried land all our 
 highest and noblest faculties, and they will there become 
 perfected to us by the sunshine of God's eternal presence, 
 and constitute that heavenly fruition which commenced 
 on earth, and led us, step by step, above and beyond the 
 stars. Thus he who had the largest appreciation of the 
 manifold beauties of this life, and who recognized the 
 discipline of its various duties and pleasures, which were 
 alone capable of cultivation by free mixing with mankind ; 
 he who weaved the thread of life into a many-coloured and 
 glorious fabric ; who by the education of every virtue, and 
 the realization of every spiritual influence, has most assimi- 
 lated himself to the Divine Pattern, will be best prepared 
 for those higher enjoyments and those loftier regions to 
 which they lead. Any other theory than this negatives 
 the only legitimate construction which can be put upon 
 the affirmation, that " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 
 he also reap and fails to secure us from, what is con- 
 trary to all God's dealing with us in the material world — 
 the absolute waste and annihilation of our noblest 
 qualities. "The mind of man, formed as it is to be more 
 tenacious of its active habits than even of its moral dis- 
 positions, is, in the present state, trained to the exercise of 
 skill, of forethought, of courage, of patience; and ought 
 it not to be inferred, unless positive evidence contradicts 
 the supposition, that this system of education bears some 
 relation of fitness to the state for which it is an initiation ? 
 Shall not the very same qualities which here are so 
 sedulously fashioned and finished, be actually needed and 
 used in that future world of perfection ? Surely the 
 idea is inadmissible that an instrument wrought up at so 
 
A 1' ALLEN FAITH. 
 
 107 
 
 much expense to a polished fitness for service, is destined 
 to be suspended for ever on the palace-walls of heaven, 
 as a glittering bauble, no more to make proof' of its 
 temper ! "* 
 
 And if these things be true, and this theory of a future 
 life has a fair degree of probability, what an advantage 
 have those who mix freely with the world, and are yet un- 
 spotted by it, over any class of Exclusionists, who shrink 
 away, like thorough cowards, from life's duties and respon- 
 sibilities : on what vantage ground will they stand as 
 compared with grotesquely-clad Quietists, or filthy Mona- 
 chists ! f Neither the primmest Christians in creation, nor 
 (as Monks have well been called) " the nastiest beasts on 
 the face of the earth," t can be so well prepared for the next 
 world, other things being equal, as those who have recog- 
 nized in the joyous beauties of this life a foretaste of the 
 heavenly Canaan. For has not the whole career of these 
 " pensioners on futurity" been one systematic abuse of a 
 thing which the more it is studied the more lovely and 
 
 * Natural History of Enthusiasm, by Isaac Taylor, p. 139. 
 
 t "The virtue which the world wants is a healthful virtue, not 
 a valetudinarian virtue ; a virtue which can expose itself to the risks 
 inseparable from all spirited exertion, not a virtue which keeps out 
 of the common air for fear of infection, and eschews the common food 
 as too stimulating." — Lord Macaulay. 
 
 X If any proof is required of the degradation to which a fanatic 
 may reduce himself, under the conviction that acts of this kind are 
 required by the Gospel, and are calculated to raise the spiritual ele- 
 ment of our threefold natures, the following amply furnishes it : To 
 such a height did "the blessed Joseph of Corleoue" carry his besti- 
 ality that he " not only never washed either himself or his tunic, but 
 during the whole of his Capuchin life nourished all sorts of the most 
 filthy parasites upon his person, gathering up with paternal solici- 
 tude those which fell from him, and replacing them amidst their 
 fellows." — Gavazzis Recollections of the Last Four 1'opes. London, 
 1858, p. 232. 
 
108 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 wonderful does it appear to us ? And what guarantee 
 have we that any man who has voluntarily incapacitated 
 himself for enjoyment on earth, can have any appreciation 
 of, or any aptitude for, enjoyment in heaven ? 
 
 IV. An absolute physical, mental, and moral deterio- 
 ration, arising from the combined effects of frequent 
 intermarriages, morbid " seriousness," and a too emotional 
 and introverting Religion. 
 
 We are not generally aware what an intimate connexion 
 there is between physical, moral, and spiritual health.* 
 This mutual and threefold dependence constitutes a fact as 
 true, if not as incomprehensible, as a doctrinal Trinity. Yet 
 no one can be fully sensible of it who embraces the belief 
 with which Quakers have harassed themselves with respect 
 to Spiritual Visitation, although he may be suffering from 
 every species of morbid religious depression. Hence the 
 misery of a creed which is based upon an ignorance of 
 ourselves and God. The more, indeed, we do know of 
 ourselves, the more we know of Him ; and that knowledge 
 is attained, not by a feeble and introverting system which 
 repudiates the beneficial accessories of the external world ; 
 but by a large and expansive one, which gathers in light 
 from all the varying influences which surround and em- 
 brace us. How distressing is it to see a cultivated and 
 earnest Christian unable to realize that serenity which he 
 seeks for, because of certain physical causes which he 
 might (or might not) control, or certain specialties inci- 
 dental to his position in life. But how much more 
 distressing to see an inability to trace the effect to legiti- 
 
 * " I firmly believe that I have more than once changed the 
 moral character of a boy, by leeches to the inside of the nose." — 
 The Duality of the Mind, by Dr. Wigan, p. 16. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 109 
 
 mate antecedents, and to find left to the sufferer the 
 miserable alternative of attributing his disquietude to the 
 withdrawal of the Comforter, and the isolation of his own 
 unaided resources ! 
 
 Such (it cannot be too often repeated) is the reciprocity 
 of action existing between the material and immaterial 
 parts of our nature, that a want of that beautiful balance 
 which constitutes (what we may term) integrity of health, 
 or symmetry of character, may, if not attributed to the 
 proper cause, and immediately rectified by the proper 
 means, develope itself into the convulsion of our triple 
 and compound being. The moment there is a want of 
 adjustment in one of the parts, the other parts may 
 respond thereto, and the latter may immediately react 
 upon the primary element of disturbance. 
 
 Thus there has come to be established, to an extent fully 
 known to psychologists, a very intimate relationship between 
 an emotional type of religion and an emotional type of phy- 
 sical disease. Hysteria, and certain forms of excito-motory 
 weakness, may bear a direct ratio to morbid apprehensions of 
 Divine wrath, or the "frothy" visions of depraving ecstacy. 
 
 The material feature of religious dependence has been 
 most ably and characteristically handled by a modern Non- 
 conformist Divine in the following passage : " As the 
 great peculiarity of our present condition of existence is, 
 that we live in a body ; and as the fitness and adaptation 
 of that body to the purposes of life depend on its sound- 
 ness and vigour — in one word on good physical Health, — 
 I begin with this.* In some very few extraordinary cases, 
 it has happened, that persons of feeble or diseased bodily 
 structure have been able to accomplish great tilings. In 
 
 * The author is endeavouring to prove (and he does prove very 
 satisfactorily), how a perfect system of religious virtue can only be 
 built up on a thoroughly healthy compound of body, mind, and soul. 
 
no 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 general, however, good health is essential to the successful 
 pursuit of the business of living. I have a great idea of 
 vigour and elasticity of limb and muscle ; strength for 
 action or endurance; brain and heart, lungs and liver, all 
 in such thorough condition that a man never for a moment 
 thinks about them ! — does not know he has a stomach, — 
 is unconscious of languor, headache, dyspepsia, — and is 
 thus fitted not only for protracted and cheerful physical 
 labour, but more likely to have force of will, large general 
 capacity; a natural inclination towards sound masculine 
 thought, and an innate superiority to indolence, luxury, 
 and debilitating indulgences. It is a miserable thing when 
 life is only one long disease, or when some conscious 
 poverty of power, some natural feebleness, or some latent 
 morbid tendency, compels a man to be always thinking 
 about himself ; forbids the formation of plans, and re- 
 strains from efforts and enterprises, which might otherwise 
 be successfully indulged or attempted. Good health is not 
 only important to a man's making the best of life, but 
 may be regarded as included in that best itself. All the 
 parts of the physical structure being sound and good, 
 fitted for their work, and constantly acting in harmony 
 with each other, not only makes the body an efficient 
 and nimble servitor for the soul, but is productive of 
 that buoyant and pleasurable consciousness which attends 
 health, and which of itself makes a man feel it a privilege 
 to live."* 
 
 I believe as thoroughly and entirely that the highest 
 form of religious virtue can only be attained by one who 
 
 * Is it Possible to Make the Best of Both Worlds ? By Thomas 
 Binney. 10th edit., pp. 30, 31. London, 1856. 
 
 I take this opportunity of recommending the above little work 
 (price Is. Gd.) to all young men, as an admirable guide from the 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 Ill 
 
 is practically conscious of the fact, that his nature is a 
 triple compound of matter, mind, and soul; as I believe 
 that a life-long victory transcends (what some persons are 
 so very fond of talking and writing about) " a death-bed 
 triumph." And they who do write and talk thus should 
 remember, that by reason of the various physiological 
 forms in which death comes to us, the opportunity of 
 displaying this triumph is granted but to few, even of the 
 noblest Christians. But the daily life — that is granted to 
 all; and that is a larger and better field for operations 
 than the narrow room and the curtained bed. There we 
 read the lesson of what Christianity does, or does not, do 
 for us. The uncomplaining spirit, the meek endurance, 
 the " smile of suffering," the habitual cheerfulness, the 
 sustained charity — they are the triumph and the victory : 
 for they are the abundant harvest of the real Christian's 
 Faith. It is for us to enquire whether Quakers have not, 
 as individuals, been so absorbed with the one idea of the 
 soul, and its direct personal communication with the Spirit, 
 as to overlook the proper cultivation of the intellect, the 
 useful and required training of the body ; and to neglect, 
 in their corporate capacity, the duties which they owe to 
 society and themselves. 
 
 First of all, is it not a well known fact that the Society 
 of Friends have not the appearance or the character 
 of healthfulness?* It is true, indeed that, owing to 
 
 beginning to the end of life. It contains more common sense, more 
 intellectual vigour, more healthful morality, more real religion, 
 thau all the Quaker literature in the world. 
 
 * I must guard myself against being misunderstood here. The 
 mortality of the Society of Friends is less than that of the commu- 
 nity at large. But 1 believe the standard of perfect physical health 
 to be nothing like so high ; and this in spite of all the advantage of 
 regular habits, and abstinence from excess. 
 
112 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 their temperate habits, they are not obnoxious to many 
 of those diseases by which others afflict themselves ; 
 and so they enjoy an immunity from one form of mor- 
 tality, though, it would seem, they are peculiarly 
 exposed to another. It is stated, in a Memoir of Lord 
 Jeffrey, that " most Quakers die of stupidity — actually and 
 literally." " I was assured the other day of the fact, by a 
 very intelligent physician, who practised among them for 
 twenty years ; and who informs me that few of the richer 
 sort live to be fifty, but die of a sort of atrophy, their cold 
 blood just stagnating by degrees among their fat. The 
 affection is known in this part of the country (Liverpool) 
 by the name of Quakers' Disease, and more than one-half 
 of them go out so."* My own personal experience would 
 certainly lead me to coincide in the general opinion, that 
 Quakers have not the appearance of robust physical health, 
 but rather that of inanition. Yet there is abundant evi- 
 dence to prove that they are not indifferent to the plea- 
 sures of the table, nor to the manifold good things of 
 this life, though, as a body, they are unquestionably ab- 
 stemious, f The good and excellent Joseph John Gurney 
 died prematurely, and he outlived two wives who appear 
 
 * Taken from Mrs. Greer's The Society of Friends. 
 
 + Mrs. Fry had very sensible views upon the subject of indif- 
 ference to material comforts. She says : " The luxuries of life and 
 generous living that I have had, I accept as gifts from a gracious 
 and merciful Providence, that have been greatly blessed to my 
 help, and, I believe, have greatly promoted my recovery. I ex- 
 ceedingly regret what I consider the intemperate and unchristian 
 views some take of these things, judging all who feel it right to 
 take stimulants in moderation. I believe Christians may use and 
 not abuse these outward blessings, and that we have the highest 
 authority for doing so ; as He who set us a perfect example, and 
 exactly knows our wants, temporal and spiritual, certainly took 
 wine." — Memoirs of Life, &c, vol. ii., p. 416. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 113 
 
 to have dropped away — one of them did certainly — quite 
 unexpectedly. It appears to me that Gurney's life was 
 shortened by his abstinence from fermented liquors, which 
 were excluded altogether from his residence, during the 
 last two years of his existence. He unquestionably died 
 of inanition. His father died prematurely likewise. 
 
 The causes, then, of the general unhealthy appearance 
 of Quakers not being excesses of a sensual character, to 
 what are we to attribute this striking feature in the career 
 of those individuals who constitute the Society of Friends ? 
 Frequent intermarriages, imperfect education, a morbid 
 seriousness — in other words, a want of cheerfulness* a 
 refusal to participate in manly sports, and a too emotional 
 piety, are of themselves sufficient to produce physical, 
 mental, and moral deterioration, in any community. 
 
 The exclusiveness of Quakers in " disowning" those who 
 marry out of the Society, has very much circumscribed 
 the choice of strict members who have uxorial tendencies ; 
 and has led to frequent intermarriages. That such unions 
 carried to any great extent produce great physical deteriora- 
 tion, is a well-acknowledged fact ; and physical deteriora- 
 tion may speedily eventuate in insanity, and in numberless 
 forms of disease depending upon imperfect nutrition. f 
 
 * " Strange as it may seem (writes Archdeacon Hare) there have 
 been such incarnate paradoxes as would rather see their fellow- 
 creatures cry than smile." 
 
 t " Consanguineous marriage, as a remote somatic cause of in- 
 sanity, stands in the same relation to the disease as the poisonous 
 atmosphere of deep valleys, or that of ill-drained or ill-ventilated 
 cities." — Dr. C. M. Burnett on the Somatic Causes of Diseases of the 
 Brain, in Journal of Mental Science, vol. iv., p. 86. 
 
 The Armenians, as a race, are now dying out of Bengal, from 
 constant intermarriages, which perpetuate and augment the result, 
 in physical deterioration. 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 Let us look at the subject of insanity — see how it may 
 be produced by the combined action of the above- 
 mentioned causes, and what amount of that frightfully 
 increasing malady prevails in the Society of Friends. 
 There appears to be some difficulty in obtaining strict 
 statistical accuracy upon this point, arising chiefly from a 
 confusion of the questions of liability to, and prevalence of, 
 insanity, the number of existing cases in different com- 
 munities being, in truth, no test of the obnoxiousness of 
 such communities to the disorder. The experience, how- 
 ever, of Dr. Thurnam, in his valuable Statistics is, that 
 there is a larger proportion of cases of partial and slight 
 mental disturbance, admitted into the York Retreat (a 
 famous Quaker Asylum for Lunatics of that persuasion), 
 than is at all common to other institutions for the recep- 
 tion of the insane. He thinks due allowance should at 
 the same time be made for the fact, that in a small 
 community, like that of the Society of Friends, the 
 number of ascertained cases would be greater than in the 
 community at large.* 
 
 An alienist physician who flourished at the beginning 
 of the present century thought that "the decorous piety, 
 and exemplary life, of the Quaker has signally exempted 
 him from the most severe of human infirmities. "f A 
 more modern writer (Dr. Burrows) thinks that there is a 
 larger proportion of Insanity in the Society of Friends 
 than out of the pale of that community ; and he assigns 
 frequent intermarriages and consequent physical deteriora- 
 tion, as the probable causes. Dr. Thurnam finally sums 
 up the matter in these words : " The proportion of existiug 
 cases of Insanity in this community, cannot thus be less 
 
 * Statistics of Insanity , by John Thurnam, M.D., pp. 175, 176. 
 t Dr. Haslam. Observations on Insanity, p. 265. London, 1809. 
 (quoted by Dr. Thurnam.) 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 115 
 
 than 52.5 to 10,000, or as 1 in 190 of its population. 
 Though, as we have seen, not at all determining the 
 degree of liability to Insanity in the Society, this is a 
 proportion of existing cases which at first sight appears 
 high, and is no doubt attributable to the slighter cases 
 brought under care, to the long average duration of resi- 
 dence, in those who are discharged recovered or otherwise, 
 and especially to the low rate of mortality at the Retreat, 
 though this latter is in part met by the lower mortality of the 
 Society of Friends as a body." * So that, in point of fact, it 
 may be stated, that statistical data are not as yet sufficiently 
 defined to enable us to determine with accuracy whether 
 the liability to Insanity is greater in the Society of Friends 
 than in the community at large. At the same time it must 
 be borne in mind, that the most fertile of the physical 
 causes of Insanity, in general asylums, is intemperance; 
 whereas in Quaker Asylums the number of cases produced 
 by this means is very small indeed. So that to a general 
 physical deterioration may probably be ascribed a larger 
 proportion of Insanity in than out of the Society of Friends. 
 This circumstance is well worthy of note, for it proves the 
 point for which I am contending. It is further supported 
 by the fact, that the number of cases of congenital weakness 
 of mind is considerably larger within the Quaker pale than 
 out of it ; and the hereditary predisposition is more evident 
 likewise. The subject itself is replete with interest, in its 
 social and general bearings; and " I feel concerned to add" 
 two circumstances in connexion withQuaker insanity^, which 
 bear out what I have previously hinted at with respect to 
 hysteria and emotionalism: 1st, "The larger number of 
 cases which originate in the earlier period of life, or from 
 
 Statistics of Insanity, p. 177. 
 
 i 2 
 
116 
 
 A FALL-EN FAITH. 
 
 20 to 30 years of age ; and 2nd, the unusually large pro- 
 portion which occurs in unmarried persons." I believe 
 there is a great deal lying under the surface of these 
 apparently trifling facts : but it is obvious that here the 
 subject assumes too special a character to make its further 
 elucidation desirable. 
 
 I am anxious, however, to suggest another view of the 
 question of Insanity. It has been my wish to indicate 
 throughout this Essay, that Quakers, like other sections of 
 Christianity, may be divisible into classes. The Society 
 of Friends contains two distinct and separate parties. The 
 one party I term self-complacent Quietists ; the other 
 party I name high-class nervous pietists. The former, it is 
 needless to observe, have nothing attractive about them, 
 and they have been the means of driving the present 
 generation from the Quaker fold in very large numbers. 
 They take things much too easily (believing that their 
 exclusiveness is their real safety and constitutes their 
 superiority over others), to go mad about religion or any- 
 thing else. And the physical deterioration of the species 
 evident in them, shows itself in intellectual feebleness 
 rather than in extravagant emotions. Joseph John Gurney 
 had a righteous horror of this section of his own com- 
 munity, when he wrote to his son : " Shun self-complacency 
 as thou wouldst a serpent ; " and his Journal and Letters 
 abound with passages expressive of his conviction of the 
 danger of this infirmity to any religious body. Nor was 
 Mrs. Fry insensible to similar dangers when she wrote : 
 " I want to see more real cultivation of mind, and more 
 enlargement of heart towards all."* 
 
 But I believe that if any analysis could be made of the 
 latter section, which bears about the same proportion to 
 
 * Memoir of Life, vol. ii., p. 110. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 117 
 
 the former as good men bear to bad in all communities, it 
 would be found that a very large per-centage of cases of 
 Insanity would be yielded by these high-class religionists. 
 For the disease here noted, is of the same emotional 
 character as that which obtains in the religiously insane, 
 in general Asylums ; and arises from perverted views of 
 human life, and human responsibilities, and from an entire 
 misapprehension of the nature of God's providential deal- 
 ings with His creatures. And this shows us how careful 
 we should be as to the expressions which we make use of 
 with respect to those unhappy subjects of mental disease, 
 now so frequently to be met with. It will be admitted 
 that nothing is more common than the notion that In- 
 sanity is a special visitation of God. We constantly hear 
 persons speak of it in this manner. But such a view is 
 obviously a direct impediment to curative measures, and a 
 direct encouragement to religious persons of a certain tem- 
 perament to entertain groundless fears of punitive dealings 
 from the Almighty. This point may, I think, be well 
 illustrated by the following consideration. Dr. Cumming 
 has recently published a Book entitled The Great Tribula- 
 tion : or the Things coming on the Earth, in which he ven- 
 tures (to adopt the phraseology of an able critic) "with a 
 degree of self-assurance which is only paralleled by his 
 enormous ignorance and audacity," to wind up things 
 terrestrial with the key of final consummation, at the end 
 of seven years. Now this is an old amusement of Dr 
 Cumming — perverting the ancient prophecies to his own 
 narrow and limited views of the material world : and I am 
 not saying more than I know to be true when I state that 
 there are Lunatic Asylums whose inmates could attest the 
 gentle and benignant influences of his strange theology. 
 And it may be predicted, with unerring certainty, that as 
 the septenary period above indicated draws toward its 
 
118 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 close, the number of weak minds brought within the 
 sphere of Crown Court Divinity will evidence, by a most 
 frightful form of religious Insanity, the dangers of fanati- 
 cal interpretation, by men who have obtained a reputation 
 for capacity to decipher the hidden mysteries of the Bible. 
 Are we to call this a " Visitation of God ? " Or is it a 
 " Visitation of Dr. Cumming," whose baneful influence it 
 is not a part of the Divine and Providential scheme to 
 modify ? Alas ! we must take the evil with the good. 
 And the most we dare say, is that in every age there are 
 false prophets, both in Science and Theology, who are 
 permitted to transmit even to a distant posterity the 
 prejudicial influences of their ignorance and presumption. 
 
 Moreover, are those who adopt this incorrect phraseology, 
 by which God is made to do that which man achieves for 
 himself, aware of the fact — the very startling fact — that 
 emotional Insanity bears an exact ratio to religious enthu- 
 siasm, which is only another name for an ill-regulated 
 desire for religious excellence ? " At an early period of 
 his observation — before the spread of infidel principles in 
 France — Pinel calculated that about one-fourth of the 
 cases of Insanity, with the causes of which he was ac- 
 quainted, were clue to excessive religious enthusiasm ; 
 while, at a later period, Esquirol found that in upwards of 
 600 lunatics in the Salpetriere, this was the cause in only 
 eight cases ; and in 337 admitted into his private asylum, 
 this was supposed to be the cause in only one instance." * 
 Does not this show us how we may pervert the spiritual 
 
 * Psychological Medicine, by Drs. Bucknill and Tuke, p. 169. 
 London, 1858. It is no answer to this fact to say that Religion 
 properly applied never produces insanity. Its danger lies in its 
 liability to misapplication. And what is misapplication to one is not 
 so to another. I should go mad (for instance) upon Mr. Spurgeon's 
 theology : and I dare say he would go mad upon mine. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 119 
 
 system — do violence to the law of grace — even where we 
 are actuated by the highest motives j just as we infringe 
 the social system, or the laws of our material nature, being 
 influenced by the lowest motives — those of immediate per- 
 sonal enjoyment — and that both causes shall be followed 
 by retributive results, of a well-determined and unvarying 
 character ? This is the law of God's dealings with us, and 
 constitutes at once (because we can decipher it) our pro- 
 tection and our discipline. 
 
 It has always appeared to me that few things are more 
 appalling, than to see men so solicitous to serve God as to 
 lose the power of correctly apprehending His goodness, 
 and, therefore, of effectually serving Him at all. And yet 
 that this is the character of the great majority of cases of 
 emotional Insanity there can be no doubt whatever. A 
 perpetual fear of the Almighty Wrath obscures the beau- 
 tiful features of Almighty Love. And this is the case equally 
 with the ignorant and with the educated, especially if the 
 latter are the subjects of physical nervousness and debility. 
 The Chaplain at Hanwell in his last Report, says : " In 
 my intercourse with the patients it is very painful to find, 
 how very erroneous are the views they entertain of the 
 character of God ; and this error not unfrequently is the 
 ground of fear and despondency. God the Father is re- 
 garded as an angry Being, who needs to have His wratli 
 appeased by the Son. Of the love of God the Father, that 
 true love which led Him to give His only begotten Son for 
 a lost world, there seems often an utter forgetfulness or 
 ignorance. There can, therefore, be no just appreciation of 
 God's readiness to receive back all who truly turn to Him."* 
 
 * It requires no professional mind to apprehend the truth of the 
 following remarks by a very able Physician (Dr. Combe) : " If the 
 best Christian be he who in meekness, humility, and sincerity 
 
120 
 
 A FALLEN FATTH. 
 
 I have already made allusion to Mrs. Fry's career, to 
 her Journal and letters, as constituting a most extra- 
 ordinary compound of material and moral weakness, 
 with lofty spiritual excellence, producing the result of 
 such terrible distress of mind, as at times to be within 
 the limits of insanity. The records of her brother, Joseph 
 John Gurney, reveal, if possible, a worse state of things. 
 I think I shall be able to give a better idea of that 
 religious condition which I am peculiarly solicitous to 
 warn others against, and which I think has had much to 
 
 places his trust in God, and seeks to fulfil all His commandments ; 
 then he who exhausts his soul in devotion and in prayer, and at the 
 same time finds no leisure or no inclination for attending to the 
 active duties of his station, and who so far from arriving at happiness 
 and peace of mind here, becomes every day the further estranged 
 from them, and finds himself at last involved in disease and despair, 
 cannot be held as a follower of Christ, but must rather be regarded 
 as the follower of a phantom assuming the aspect of religion. Where 
 insanity attacks the latter it is obviously not religion that is its 
 cause ; it is only the abuse of certain feelings, the regulated activity 
 of which is necessary to the right exercise of religion ; and against 
 which abuse a sense of true religion would, in fact, have been the 
 most powerful protection. And the great benefit to be derived from 
 knowing this is, that whenever we shall meet with such a blind or 
 misdirected excess of our best feelings, in a constitutionally nervous 
 or hereditarily disposed subject, instead of encouraging its exube- 
 rance, as at present we often do, by yielding it our respect and 
 admiration, and even attempting to imitate its intensity ; we shall 
 use every effort to temper the excess, to inculcate sounder views, 
 and to point out the inseparable connexion which the Creator has 
 established between the true dictates of religion, and the practical 
 duties of life, which it is part of His purpose in sending us here to 
 fulfil ; a conviction, it may not be superfluous to add, which it is 
 impossible to portray or enforce more strongly than is done in the 
 lives both of the Founder of Christianity, and His Disciples." — 
 Observations on Menial Derangement, p. 191. (Quoted by Drs. 
 Bucknill and Tuke.) 
 
A FALLEX FAITH. 
 
 121 
 
 do with the decadence of the Society of FrieDds, by giving 
 a very brief sketch of this man's career ; because it at 
 once betrays the grievous spectacle, of one endowed with 
 every blessing (though with a constitution somewhat dete- 
 riorated, but which might have been developed into health 
 by proper mental and physical discipline), "weaving off life's 
 loom" a fabric of most heterogeneous materials, and most 
 inharmonious colouring. It is a vestment more torturing 
 than the rough cloth of the Franciscans, than the stones 
 trodden by the bare and bleeding feet of pilgrims to a 
 far-distant shrine, or the self-inflicted flagellations of a 
 degrading and superstitious creed. For it is accompanied 
 by what no monachist ever realized — the perfect refine- 
 ment, and cultivated taste, of a Christian gentleman.* 
 
 Joseph John Gurney was educated at Oxford, and had 
 certainly a special aptitude for classical studies, and the 
 enjoyment of general literature. He began, however, at 
 the very earliest, that pernicious system of " anatomizing 
 his piety," journalizing his religious feelings. We have, 
 as in all records of this character, a continuous spectacle 
 of self-created misery, which is only useful to others in 
 the way of warning against a similar indulgence. At 
 twenty-five he records in his Diary " a deep feeling of the 
 terrors of the Lord;" and just previously he had been 
 afflicted with those struggles about dress (for his Quakerism 
 was not hereditary) to which 1 shall have occasion to allude 
 hereafter. Yet, strangely enough, he recognizes the im- 
 portance of a religion which is not gloomy, and which has 
 no savour of discontent; of free communication with 
 others on the subject of religious studies, and of the grand 
 
 * " It is a fact, the importance of which can never be diminished, 
 that the full and true history of one man's life is worth all the books 
 that ever were written about human nature."— {Bayard Taylor.) 
 
122 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 importance of practical Christianity,* to the exclusion of all 
 secondary points of difference of a theoretical character. 
 At twenty-six he says : " '2nd mo. 6th. I have been of 
 late in the practice of waiting morning and evening in 
 silent attempts at worship." This is a prelude to a long 
 course of wretchedness ; for the " tasting of the Lord's 
 sweet presence" is merely an ecstatic and transitory feeling, 
 immediately succeeded by " weakness, and doubtfulness, 
 and clouds of indifference/" — the necessary reaction, in a 
 young mind, of a surfeit of religious " fear," and religious 
 excitement. And so on, ever doubting the sufficiency of 
 the means of grace, and ever looking out for special and 
 personal communications with the Deity, irrespective of 
 all those conditions by which God alone manifests Himself 
 to us. This state of things is not conducive to somatic 
 health ; and a constitution not originally strong, though 
 not actually morbid, eventuates in " the highly nervous 
 temperament," to which Mrs. Fry herself alludes. Gurney's 
 practical life is most exemplary. He has an ample com- 
 petence ; he is generous to a degree ; very properly thinks 
 that " spending money is better and less injurious to the 
 spirit than saving it unduly," but still doubts whether he 
 " is not exceeding Christian moderation." He marries, and 
 is happy, and begets two children, when his wife glides 
 passively and quietly from the world. He is a widower, 
 and again seeks uxorial consolation. He is married a 
 second time, and " bright, hopeful, and happy was his 
 wedding day." But there is no real, or continuous, or 
 cheerful peace. " Deep discouragement was the clothing 
 of his soul during two nearly silent meetings, chiefly in 
 
 * I have previously recorded his definition of practical Chris- 
 tianity. It is to be feared that his definition of " a religion without 
 gloom" would have been equally unsatisfactory. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 the apprehension that some among them were taking 
 retrograde steps." This feeling increased as years rolled 
 on, and the decadence of the Society became so evident. 
 He writes : " 1st mo. 2nd, 1829. The condition of that part 
 of the Church of Christ which is within the borders of 
 Quakerism, is a cause, from time to time, of much 
 humiliation and depression. Life is at a low ebb amongst 
 us, I greatly fear ; and the removal from the scene of 
 warfare of so many promising young persons, seems, to 
 our finite eye, almost to preclude the hope of revival." 
 At this period we have a letter to his son at school, which 
 is characterised by the usual inconsistency of Quakers — 
 an inconsistency, however, it is right to add, of which 
 they are not themselves conscious. The healthy moral 
 tone which might be given to a young mind by the injunc- 
 tion — " Never speak or think highly of thyself," is imme- 
 diately negatived by the extravagance of the next sentence 
 — "Thou art a poor unworthy creature, a mere worm of 
 earth. 11 * It has been quaintly and truly observed that 
 
 * 1 extract from this letter the following, which is such capital 
 common sense, and healthy morality, that it is quite refreshing to 
 come across it. It is fit for any boy at school, or any man in the 
 world : — " 3rd. Rest assured that to be half a Christian and half 
 not will never answer any good purpose. 4th. Be a whole man to 
 everything. At Latin be a whole man to Latin. At geometry or 
 history be a whole man to geometry or history. At play be a 
 whole man to play. At washing and dressing be a whole man to 
 washing and dressing. Above all, at meeting, be a whole man to 
 worship. 6th. Avoid all vain and evil thoughts. Evil thoughts 
 are sin. 7th. Mind thy manners as well as thy morals. Do not be 
 clumsy and awkward. Be always ready to serve and please all 
 around thee. Be swift to give up thy own will to the will of 
 others, in little things : this is the way to be a true gentleman. 
 Finally, whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, 
 &c. &c. So farewell, my dearest boy. — J. J. G." This advice is so 
 
124 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 " Man is a man, not a worm — ' made a little lower than 
 the angels,' at first; fallen below himself now, and destined 
 to ' judge angels ' by and by."* 
 
 At the age of forty-five Gurney is oppressed with doubts 
 about entering Parliament. " 3rd mo. 14th. — Up to the 
 middle of last Sixth-day night, I could find no peace, 
 except in resignation to the parliamentary prospect, should 
 the Lord clearly open the way for it ; but in that memor- 
 able midnight hour my mind became relieved ; the pros- 
 pect gradually disappeared, and after the intense conflict 
 which I have long gone through on the subject, I am 
 now, through the infinite condescension of my Divine Master, 
 left without the shadow of a doubt." How fearfully 
 must these perpetual conflicts have physically, as well as 
 mentally and morally, deteriorated, a highly nervous and 
 sensitive man like Gurney ! Two years after these parlia- 
 mentary struggles, he lost his second wife. Antecedent 
 to these events, during the previous ten years, he was 
 constantly engaged in visits to Friends, for " religious 
 purposes," in different parts of the country. He had 
 " a concern to visit Ireland" with Mrs. Fry; and to 
 Ireland they both went. Anti-slavery movements (in 
 which Quakers have peculiarly distinguished themselves, 
 but always in combination with "the world") and literary 
 labours, occupied much of his time; and it should be 
 said that the published works of Joseph John Gurney on 
 the Distinguishing Views and Practices of the Society of 
 Friends, and on other subjects, constitute the standard 
 
 truly admirable that it is a sufficiently durable foundation on 
 which to build Mr. Kingsley's healthy wisdom : " Life is very short, 
 and the truest philosophy is to waste none of it, but to cram the 
 maximum of play, as well as of work, into the minimum of time." 
 
 * Lectures on the Book of Job, by Alfred Bowen Evans, p. 243. 
 London, 1856. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 125 
 
 modern literature of these singular eclectics. They are 
 characterized by intellectual vigour, perspicuous language, 
 and the true spirit of the Christian gentleman. In 1837, 
 Gurney felt that it was " required of him to visit Friends 
 in America," and he urged the Society to " loose him 
 and let him go." This they did ; and the earnest and 
 zealous labourer spent three years on the other side of the 
 Atlantic, engaged in every good work, but in many very 
 miserable and morbid reflections. Some of his American 
 letters are very interesting ; but, in all, feelings are the 
 prevailing topic, and the reader cannot realize to himself 
 that any real good was being effected. One could have 
 wished that Gurney had not again married on his return 
 from the New World. Such a step was hardly consistent 
 with his lofty spiritual pretensions; and the fact of his 
 children now growing up into companionship made it the 
 less necessary. There appears to have been an austerity 
 about his third wife which, after the bridegroom's own 
 record of the marriage may not seem surprising.* Was 
 ever such a "serious" wedding before? "5th day, 
 10th mo. 21st. — The solemn, happy, favoured, marriage- 
 day. I was engaged in prayer in the early part of the 
 meeting, for the manifestation of the Divine sanction, 
 which was indeed fully granted. Afterwards, Katherine 
 Backhouse in an excellent testimony, and H. C. Backhouse 
 in fervent prayer. After the marriage was complete, I 
 had a few sentences to utter, on the victory which is in 
 the faith. The dinner party, cheerful and agreeable, con- 
 cluded by a short religious opportunity," &c, &c. . 
 
 Soon after this Gurney publishes his work on The Papal 
 and Hierarchical System, becomes impressed with the 
 
 * This lady is now living, and is, I am assured, a most " cheer- 
 ful," admirable, and exemplary woman. 
 
126 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 "call" to become a teetotaller, substitutes coffee for in- 
 fusion of malt and hop, as the general domestic beverage, 
 and banishes the beer-barrels from the poor old cellars at 
 Earlham. I have previously recorded my belief that the 
 good man's physical condition was unequal to the with- 
 drawal of this healthy stimulus. 
 
 And now commence Continental journeys, and visits to 
 crowned heads, with a view of improving prison discipline, 
 and ameliorating the condition of slaves. Everywhere 
 people were attracted by these novel and grotesque visita- 
 tions. Meetings were held at which the Spirit presided, 
 and became general Interpreter for words uttered in a 
 foreign tongue.* It would not be right to say that no 
 good was done by these proceedings ; but it may not 
 
 * Gurney himself knew French and frequently interpreted the 
 language of English Friends, at these foreign gatherings. But on 
 various occasions, in Holland and Germany, these zealous believers 
 in the doctrine of the immediate and personal revelation of the 
 Spirit, were not deterred from giving utterance to their sentiments 
 in their own tongue, when no one present, but themselves, could 
 understand one word of what was said. But there was nothing new 
 in this, as may be seen from the following testimony of an early 
 Friend as to the edification to be derived from a sermon in a " not- 
 understandable" language: "The 3rd day following, we had a 
 meeting atMyrionwith the Welsh Friends, among whom I was much 
 satisfied ; for several of them appearing in testimony in the British 
 tongue, which I did not understand ; yet being from the Word 
 of Truth in them, as instruments moved thereby, I was as much re- 
 freshed as if it had been in my own language ; which confirmed me 
 in what I had thought before, that when the Spirit is the same in 
 the preacher and hearer, and is the Truth, the refreshment is chiefly 
 thereby, rather than by the form of words or language, to all that 
 are in the same Spirit at the same time. And this is the universal 
 language of the Spirit, known and understood in all tongues and 
 natious, to them that are born of Him." — Journal of the Life of 
 Thomas Story, p. 177 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 127 
 
 unreasonably be asked whether there was not a more 
 immediate and useful sphere of duty at home, in England? 
 And this thought frequently crossed the mind of Mrs. Fry. 
 Time wears on ; physical weakness and general nervousness 
 increase ; the good man droops ; Sir Fowell Buxton and 
 Mrs. Fry go out upon the Great Journey, and he himself 
 draws nearer to the confines of the unseen world. And 
 now, when all should be peace and quietness, and the 
 close of so good and exemplary a life perfectly unclouded, 
 we are brought to see this highly sensitive and nervous 
 temperament in the most appalling state of morbid de- 
 pression. So perverted has become the mental vision that 
 he is unable to connect together in legitimate relation- 
 ships, the most palpable cases of cause and effect. Now 
 we have visions of almost despair, now of almost peace. 
 " 12th mo. 16th, 1845. — I spent almost a sleepless night, 
 not without some deep tribulation of soul : and much lovv- 
 ness and weakness have been my portion this morning," 
 &c, &c. "3rd mo. 28th, 1846.— Cordelia Bayes and Mary 
 Browne came to a luncheon dinner. Cordelia told us that 
 a cheerful heart was the fruit of a thankful spirit. I was 
 pleased with the remark, not having before put cause and 
 consequence together in the same way." " 4th mo. 26th, 
 3rd day morning.— ~My state is not a high one; much of 
 self-loathing, accompanied by some degree of disquietude, 
 lest I should not, after all, be truly the child of grace."* 
 
 * Gurney's letters and journal abound with expressions which 
 show, now his great distress— now his unusual calm : " I am humbled 
 in the dust before the Lord, as a poor guilty earth-worm." " Bowing 
 down my head like a bulrush." " Notwithstanding all the blessings 
 with which we are surrounded, deep lowne.ss sometimes comes over 
 me." " My tears flowed abundantly." "Sometimes the peaceful predo- 
 minates, and swells into a calm joy." "After the meeting was ovir, 
 
128 
 
 A FALLKX FAITH. 
 
 At last comes a bright gleam of sunshine, and we have a 
 glimpse of the elegant and beautiful mind which might 
 have shaped out to itself a happier religion, and preached 
 a nobler lesson to the world. Gurney loved his garden 
 and his flowers : but even that most innocent pleasure he 
 enjoyed not without some doubt and misgiving. He 
 says (Wth mo. 2\st.) .... " Since breakfast we 
 have had a most agreeable time in the bright chrysan- 
 themised garden. Who has the same pleasure in flowers 
 that I have ? / trust it is not idolatry. Can it be that 
 
 From Paradise to Paradise my upward course extends, 
 
 My Paradise of flowers on earth, in Heaven's Elysium ends ?"* 
 
 Let us leave him amid the flowers and the sunshine. f Let 
 
 I retired alone into the little library, and found vent for the tears of 
 a broken spirit, to my own relief and comfort." " Not quite for- 
 saken." " Poverty, quietness, and deep nothingness." " A blessed 
 absence of excitement, an unbroken tranquility, are my happy 
 portion." 
 
 Perhaps Gurney reached the climax of distress, bordering upon 
 Insanity, when on his voyage home from America in 1840, he wrote : 
 " Greyheaded as I am, I am at times haunted by the shadows of old 
 corruptions ; and Satan still plays at seasons on the irritability of 
 my nervous system, fills me with strange fears, and bids words of 
 murmuring (in which I believe I have no part), to dart, like lightning, 
 through my almost morbidly sensitive mind." — Memoirs, vol. ii., 
 p. 226. 
 
 " And, on the other hand, when the spirits are dejected and low, 
 they often let in such an excess of fear as betrays the sziccours of 
 reason, and makes men cruciate themselves with the apprehensions 
 of sin, even when there is really none." — Dean Young's Sermons, 
 vol. ii., p. 100, (quoted in Southey's Common-place Book). 
 
 * Memoirs of the Life of J. J. Gurney, 2 vols, 8vo. 
 
 t One of his dearest Friends —a convert to his own creed, divested 
 of its austerity and its rigid formality — had a passion for flowers, 
 without a thought of idolatry. Mrs. Opie's biographer writes of her : 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 129 
 
 us think of him only in the beautiful home where there are 
 no doubts or misgivings, and where the waves of this 
 troublesome world shall buffet no more for ever. I have 
 often wondered whether it will hereafter be one of the 
 Saviour's gentle offices, to meet on the very threshold of 
 Heaven those who here, more than all others, strove to see 
 " the King in his beauty," and could only faintly discern 
 Him through the clouds of "wrath'' and "terror;" 
 whether the gentle Sympathizer, who bore the cross and the 
 shame, will be standing there to receive these feeble ones, 
 and conduct them into the Immediate Presence of Eternal 
 Love and Mercy. Who can tell? 
 
 I have placed this agonizing (but I am sure truth- 
 ful) picture here, because I am anxious to call attention 
 to the fact, that such a career as Gurney's is considered 
 by many as a type of the highest form of Christian 
 attainment ; whereas I believe it to be a life so distress- 
 ing to contemplate, by reason of the immense disparity 
 between its aspirations and its achievements, that it 
 is not right to present it to the study of any young 
 person. It is absolutely nothing more or less than a 
 spectacle, of an elegant mind, a tolerably healthy body,* 
 the purest religions Faith, all capable of working together 
 
 " Flowers, too, were ber constant companions ; she luxuriated in 
 them, and filled her window-sills with stands of them, and covered 
 her tables with bouquets." — Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie, 
 by Cecilia Lucy Brightwell, p. 334. Norwich, 1854. 
 
 * Gurney does not appear to have been afflicted with any organic 
 disease. A nervous and deteriorated constitution was unquestion- 
 ably his portion. But under a less exacting and cruciating creed 
 and with greater attention to physical requirements, he would have 
 rallied against the nervous depressions which yielded him such in- 
 tense agony. Alas ! the " seriousness," and the want of cheerfulness 
 so frequently accompanying his Religion, told fearfully against his 
 enervated physique. 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 harmoniously, and producing "promise of the life which now 
 is" as well as of " that which is to come," so set to antagonize 
 each other, as to reduce the body to a state of nervous, 
 powerless, and almost hysterical debility ; the mind to a 
 condition in which it could scarcely make a logical de- 
 duction, or apprehend the plainest truth ; and render 
 the Faith, the soul's anchor, the Christian's Hope, such a 
 tattered wreck of despair and misery, as to bring its un- 
 happy victim to the very verge of religious Insanity. And 
 I believe that Quakerism — the attempt to make emotional 
 elevation, and morbid depression, the respective gauges of 
 spiritual fulness or emptiness — must always, in excellent 
 and conscientious persons, more or less eventuate in some 
 such misery as has been here delineated. Alas! too, the 
 purity of intention, the elegant refinement of individual 
 character, the meekness and charity which were unfailing 
 ■ — do but make more evident the dreadful misery of this 
 Creed. " Quietness," in truth, of one sort, the quietness of 
 outward deportment, but not that quietness which we are 
 taught to desiderate, and which is summed up in the lan- 
 guage of Divinity, as "quietness and assurance for ever.''* 
 
 * If one wants to gather some idea of the kind of " quietness 
 and assurance" just now obtaining in Ireland, I would advise him 
 to read a pamphlet, by Archdeacon Stopford, entitled The Work 
 and the Counterwork. It has reference to the " Religious Revival 
 in Belfast," and demonstrates but too clearly how largely the 
 emotional excitement among a certain class of females and others, 
 is due rather to physical phenomena than to spiritual influences. 
 
 The fanaticism of some of the preachers is almost incredible. 
 And so well do they know the fearful effects they are about to pro- 
 duce, that preparations are made by the office bearers of the Church 
 for the reception of whatever " cases " may require removal and at- 
 tention. This is called God's work : but, of a truth, it has much more 
 similarity to the Devil's. It is very analogous to the excitement of 
 Fox's early years, and to the " Dancing Epidemic " of the middle ages." 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 131 
 
 What a strange contrast is presented by these alter- 
 nations of passive calmness and intense agony, in one so 
 gifted by nature and by grace as was Joseph John Gurney, 
 with the unswerving confidence, and unbounded joy of the 
 great Apostle of the Indies, " who went forth, literally, like 
 the Apostles, carrying neither purse nor scrip, with his 
 Bible and his breviary, a crucifix, and a small silver cup." 
 To Ignatius Loyola, writes his pupil, Francis Xavier : — 
 " So intense and abundant are the delights which God is 
 accustomed to bestow on those who labour diligently in 
 his service, in this barbarous land, that if there be in this 
 life any true and solid enjoyment, I believe it to be this, 
 and this alone."* What a life of love and labour was this 
 man's ! We cannot all live — it is not necessarv we all 
 should live — as did this noble hero ; and we may not all know 
 his desolate yet sublime ending. But we can all appreciate 
 the true nobility of the Christian missionary, and feel it 
 to be better to die as he did, '■' in the full assurance of 
 hope, after a life of faithful and devoted service like his, 
 than in a roval sleeping chamber, with no record on hio-h 
 save that of mercies ill-requited, and years spent in vain."f 
 Had Gurney only possessed a tithe of this man's self- 
 confidence, how far happier had been his career ! And had 
 it been combined with that manly cheerfulness which 
 bespeaks equanimity and peace, he would have rivalled 
 another noble Christian, though, strictly speaking, material 
 labourer, whose Journal contains more reality, and truth, 
 and information of the loftier sort, than all the records of 
 spasmodic religionists. " I can see," says Dr. Kane, 
 writing with characteristic spirit, " I can see strength of 
 
 * God's Heroes and the World's Heroes, by Eev. J. H. Gurney, 
 p. 252. London 1808. 
 t Ibid. p. 2C6. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH . 
 
 system in cheerfulness of heart* The best prophylactic 
 is a hopeful, sanguine, temperament ; the best cure, moral 
 resistance — that spirit of combat against every trial which 
 is alone true bravery." O let it be remembered where, and 
 under what awfully depressing influences, this was recorded. 
 And, says another writer, whom I have before mentioned: 
 — " !S T ext to health of body, I mention that healthiness 
 of the soul, which consists in calm and equable animal 
 spirits. I want a natural, unaffected, quiet, uniform, cheer- 
 fulness. The mind must be at ease. There must be rest 
 and repose there; freedom from solicitude, despondency, 
 and perturbation ; no sinking of the spirit of man under 
 frequent or constant depression and gloom. Nothing can 
 be either done or enjoyed in life, if tlie mind is liable to 
 be torn or tormented thus. It unfits for exertion ; it 
 destroys energy ; it withers hope ; it represses ambition ; 
 it makes the will to vacillate, and the judgment to falter; 
 it terrifies and alarms, or crushes and annihilates ; it makes 
 
 a man timid, dastardly, uncertain, useless ! 
 
 I want him to walk as a child of the day, not like a thing 
 creeping and cowering in the darkness. If not always or 
 often among flowers and verdure, at least let him believe 
 
 * Our great Addison also speaks of the importance of cheer- 
 fulness : — " I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The 
 latter I consider as an act, the former as an habit of the mind. 
 Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. 
 Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth who are 
 subject to the greatest depression of melancholy : on the contrary, 
 cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite 
 gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth 
 is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds, 
 and glitters for a moment ; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight 
 in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity!'' — 
 Spectator, p. 381. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 133 
 
 and rejoice that such things are I want 
 
 the morning to find him without anxiety — the night to 
 descend without bringing with it sleeplessness or terror. 
 Let the darkness and the light be both alike to him ; a 
 calm, tranquil, joyous heart, prompting and furnishing 
 ' his matins duly and his even-song.' "* 
 
 It is a judicious combination of all these things which con- 
 stitutes that beautiful and harmonious symmetry, in which 
 alone is treasured the highest form of Christian virtue.f 
 
 As the question of imperfect education will be brought 
 under our notice in another section of this Essay, I shall 
 merely note the obvious fact, that a thoroughly healthy 
 mind implies and includes a comprehensive system of 
 training and instruction. 
 
 V. The singularly obstructive character of the Society's 
 Socio-political relations! dp to the world — comprising the 
 questions of the Lawfulness of Oaths, of War, and of 
 Ecclesiastical Imposts ; the peculiarities of Dress, Lan- 
 guage, and Deportment ; the prohibition of Sports and 
 Amusements ; the non-recognition of Distinctive Social 
 Inequalities, and the proliibitions placed upon Trade. 
 
 Every civilized society is regulated by certain laws, and 
 
 * Is it Possible to make the Best of Both Worlds ? by Thus. Biuney, 
 pp. 31, 32. 
 
 f The following is an admirably drawn picture of a thoroughly 
 healtby Christian : — " In fact, Sir Thomas More was an instance 
 of the rarest class of men, he was a symmetrical man: I mean by 
 that, a man every part of whose nature is equally developed. He 
 was a man of no eccentricities, or follies, or weaknesses, but well 
 proportioned, well disciplined throughout ; a man equal to any- 
 thing ; without intrigue, without fear ; manly yet mirthful ; going 
 through this world as consciously on a journey to a better ; with 
 duty as an ever-preseut guide, and peace as an inseparable com- 
 panion : equab 1 y and serenely good." — Lectures on Great Men, by 
 Frederic Myers, M.A., p. 199. London, 185G. 
 
131 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 controlled by certain usages; and is under the influence of 
 certain conventional customs, which are more or less ac- 
 ceptable to the community at large, according to individual 
 taste and temperament. It is generally felt that the 
 minority must yield to the majority, in supporting that 
 protective system which has been legalized by the wisdom 
 of our ancestors, and made conformable to the require- 
 ments of an age essentially progressive. As that is the 
 best educational process which moulds its subjects into 
 the greatest usefulness ; and as that is the purest religion 
 which eventuates in the highest individual excellence ; so 
 that is the best citizenship which adapts its members to 
 the civil and social institutions of their country. The 
 perfection of a society lies in the congruousness of its in- 
 dividual parts, and the collective harmony of its entire 
 strength. 
 
 Our friends the Quakers are here again the most wilful 
 and determined obstructionists. Believing that a con- 
 tinuous warfare against the wickedness of the world, and 
 against social conventionalisms, are synonymous, their 
 career has been one of once active, and now passive, re- 
 sistance to " the powers that be." Though they are of 
 opinion (to adopt Barclay's own words) that the Scriptures 
 " are not to be esteemed the principal ground of all truth 
 and knowledge, nor yet the adequate primary rule of faith 
 and manners ; " yet their controversial works are argu- 
 ments to prove that modern manners ought to be Bible 
 manners, that primitive customs and observances which 
 obtained 1800 years ago, and were sanctioned by the 
 Apostles and by Christ himself, ought now to be pre- 
 valent, and still constitute our civil and social code. Let 
 us consider some of these points on which Quakers are so 
 singularly antagonistic, most of which are embraced under 
 Barclay's 15th Proposition — Concerning Salutations, Be- 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 135 
 
 creations, §c. Perhaps it will be more convenient to 
 consider the entire subject according to the Apologist's 
 divisional arrangement : — 
 
 1. " That it is not lawful to give to men such flattering 
 titles, as your Holiness, your Majesty, your Eminency, 
 your Excellency, your Grace, your Lordship, your Honour, 
 &c, nor using of those flattering words, commonly called 
 compliments. 
 
 2. " That it is not lawful for Christians to kneel, or pros- 
 trate themselves to any man, or to bow the body, or 
 uncover the head to them. 
 
 3. " That it is not lawful for Christians to use superfluities 
 in apparel as are of no use, save for ornament and vanity. 
 
 4. " That it is not lawful to use games, sports, plaj 7 s, 
 nor, among other things, comedies among Christians, under 
 the notion of Recreations, which do not agree with Chris- 
 tian silence, gravity, and sobriety, &c. 
 
 5. " That it is not lawful for Christians to swear at all 
 under the Gospel, not only not vainly nor in their common 
 discourse, which was also forbidden under the Mosaical 
 Law, but even not in judgment before the magistrate. 
 
 6. " That it is not lawful for Christians to resist evil, or 
 to war or fight in any case." * 
 
 These two first headings may be taken together. 
 
 Now if men were carried back (which Heaven forbid !) 
 to a state of primitive simplicity, or primitive anything else, 
 we could hardly, even then, understand the persistent con- 
 duct of Quakers in respect of salutations, and those formal 
 courtesies which are included under the term compliments. 
 We do not, however, in any sense desire a restoration to 
 primitiveness, and we do not admit the authority of the 
 Bible in social questions, which involve the sacrifice of no 
 
 Barclay's Apology. Prop. xv. 
 
136 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 Christian principle, and no Ciiristian practice. A true 
 and comprehensive philosophy hids us compare the times 
 in which opinions were delivered, and precepts enjoined, 
 with these latter days, and test their applicability to the 
 present advanced period of civilization. Some things are 
 only given for an age, a particular generation ; other things 
 are for every age, and for all time. And surely we are 
 prone to admit the influence of concurrent circumstances 
 and facts, in questions of a purely doctrinal character. It 
 may be necessary (and, indeed, it was necessary, which 
 accounts for the startling difference between St. James 
 and St. Paul) to enforce the doctrine of justification by 
 faith, with peculiar vigour in one age, and amongst 
 one people, and that of good works with equal vigour in 
 and to another. What should we gain — in what way 
 would society be benefited — by a return to primitive 
 manners and customs, and to an obsolete phraseology ? 
 Is not our very life-blood sustained by the feeling that 
 " onward" is our watchword? And 
 
 " I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widen'd by the process of the suns." 
 
 It is as obvious as anything can be that we are living in 
 a world of material, moral, social, and (it is to be hoped) 
 spiritual progress. We are placed in — that is to say, we 
 constitute — a Society, which, by general consent, requires 
 fencing out into various social partitions, by the define- 
 ments of titular consideration, and the outward manifes- 
 tations of courtesy and respect. The individual, or the 
 aggregate of individuals, failing to comply with these 
 requirements, are at once placed in a position of obstruc- 
 tive antagonism to the great majority of the species; the 
 result of which, in one age, is political and religious 
 persecution ; in another and more tranquil period of 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 137 
 
 liberty of conscience — a conviction of singular purity of 
 motive, and singular obstinacy of bearing. The decadence 
 of the Society of Friends has been immensely influenced 
 by these facts ; and Admiral Penn's parting words to his 
 Quaker son have not beeD, and never will be, realized : 
 " Son William, if you and your friends keep to your plain 
 way of preaching and living, you will make an end of the 
 priests." The "end of the priests," however, will come 
 from another source than this — a source springing from 
 themselves, which knows not charity nor Christian love. 
 And it has been well and forcibly said that the real peril 
 of the Church of England lies in " the fact of Puritans 
 and ftomanizers existing side by side — the fact of angry 
 and confronting Societies for Foreign Missions and for 
 Home Missions, and for every branch of the Church's 
 work — the fact of ' Tractarians and Evangelicals ' — the 
 fact of Mr. Gorham, and Mr. Denison, and Mr. Poole — 
 the fact of the Bishop of Exeter and the Bishop of Ripon 
 — the fact of Exeter Hall preachers and those of St. 
 Barnabas" — the fact that these individuals, and Societies, 
 and organized ecclesiastical instrumentalities, are for the 
 most part, according to their sectional distribution, trying 
 to undo to-day the work which others did yesterday — 
 that they have no kindly or sympathetic feelings in 
 common, no large-hearted charity, no desire to win souls 
 apart from winning them through a particular channel, 
 and by one particular door. 
 
 It may be true, indeed — to return to the subject of titular 
 distinctions — that, as Barclay states, we are called upon 
 to dignify with the title of " Excellency " those who have 
 no excellency in them : or to style " Your Grace " one who 
 appears to be an enemy to Grace; or to name "Your 
 Honour " one who is known to be base and ignoble. " I 
 wonder," says the Apologist, " what law of man, or what 
 
138 
 
 A FALLEN" FAITH. 
 
 patent, ought to oblige me to make a lie, in calling good 
 evil, or evil good ? " No law at all, certainly. You are 
 evading the question, which is — not 'Am I bound to do so 
 and so?' but, 'If the general rule is to do so and so, have 
 I any right to complain at the consequences of my omission 
 to fall in with the popular usage, as long as those conse- 
 quences do not assume the character of persecution?' 
 Many good men are sensible of the anomalies to which 
 you allude j but they do not look upon the customs of 
 Society (which, strictly speaking, might, as far as the plain 
 letter of Scripture is concerned, be negatively incorrect) 
 in the severe light that you do, and therefore they are 
 content to fall in with the popular apprehension. The 
 plain case is this : You Friends are living grouped together 
 (a real insulation) in a social community, with an immense 
 number of others who believe in the theory of mutual de- 
 pendence, and reciprocal action, and communication with 
 God through many mediate instrumentalities, rather than 
 through direct personal and miracular visitations. This 
 community constitutes what is called Society. And that 
 Society, for protection and legitimate purposes, which all 
 but yourselves recognize as essential to its integrity, has 
 instituted a social code more or less conformed to its intui- 
 tive perceptions of right and wrong, and to the general 
 requirements of civilization. It is generally believed that 
 this code is based upon Christian principles, and answers 
 to the main requirements of the Gospel of Christ ; but it 
 is not believed that the perfectly symmetrical system 
 shadowed out in Scripture is most likely to be attained 
 by a strict conformity to primitive manners and usages, the 
 beauty of that system lying in its power of self-adaptation. 
 As a member of the natural world, you may, if you please, 
 retire to back-settlements, and become, if possible, more an 
 isolation of humanity than you are at present. But if you 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 139 
 
 remain for purposes of material advantage in an artificial 
 state of Society, you cannot separate yourself from the 
 courtesy of general compliance, without incurring to a 
 certain extent penalties which are not persecutions, and 
 which merely indicate that the social community is an 
 accumulation of links binding man to his fellow-man — 
 each individual being more or less required to contri- 
 bute to its sustentation. It is believed, also, that if you 
 tear down these landmarks (for to a certain extent they are 
 landmarks) of civilization, you are committing a gratuitous 
 aggression upon others, which is fairly entitled to the 
 visitation of a punishment which shall exclude you from 
 our sympathy. To teach a man who is dependent upon 
 you, and to whom you must know you are superior in 
 every material and immaterial sense, that he is your 
 equal, and that he is to show you no more outward respect 
 than he would to the veriest ruffian that could be met with, 
 is at once to sow the seed of a social communism.* It 
 
 * Quakers repudiate altogether this communism ; but it is the 
 inevitable tendeuey of a system where all men are accounted equal, 
 and where a servant may "have a concern " to reprove his master 
 at any moment, by reason of spiritual suggestions. 
 
 " In no Society is a man, if I may use the expression, so much of 
 a man, as iu that of the Quakers, or in no Society is there such an 
 equality of rank and privileges." — A Portraiture of Quakerism, by 
 Thomas Clarksou, M.A., vol. i., p. 252. 
 
 "For it is in the essence of the Quaker Discipline, that every 
 member should watch over another for his good. There are no 
 exceptions as to persons. The servant has as much right to watch 
 over his master with respect to his religious conduct and conversation, 
 as the master over his servant ; and he has a right, if his master 
 violate the discipline, to speak to him in a respectful manner for 
 so doing. Nor would a Quaker-servant if he were well grounded 
 in the principles of the Society, and felt it to be his duty, want the 
 courage to speak his mind upon such occasions. There have been 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 would be wiser to instruct him in the theory of relative 
 duties and responsibilities, and to show him how the notion 
 of any kind of equality is opposed by all facts and expe- 
 rience. Everything antagonizes such an idea. The very 
 specialties by which we are surrounded individually and 
 collectively negative such a proposition, for (as has been 
 truly observed) they may " affect every thought and act to 
 the latest hour of life." There is, in truth, no analogy to 
 this system of equality either in the physical, moral, intel- 
 lectual, social, or spiritual world.* One man is stronger 
 
 instances where this has happened, and where the master in 
 the true spirit of his religion has not felt himself insulted by 
 such interference, but has looked upon his servant afterwards as 
 more worthy of his confidence and esteem." — lbid.,\o\. ii., pp. 97, 98. 
 
 * William Penn was brought to a full recognition of social grada- 
 tions and distinctions. " When Penn arrived a second time in 
 America, there were many who doubted the lawfulness of retaining 
 slaves ; yet on looking at the matter calmly he felt certain that 
 between the two races there existed an intellectual inequality, which 
 no Act of Assembly could remove, and which must of necessity pre- 
 clude social equality, until by process of education and lapse of time, 
 the negro had been raised in the scale of being." — William Penn, 
 an Historical Biography, by William Hepworth Dixon, p. 390. 
 
 " Une certaine inegalite dans les conditions qui entretient l'ordre 
 et la subordination est l'ouvrage de Dieu, ou suppose une loi divine : 
 une trop grande disproportion et telle qu'elle se remarque parmi les 
 homines, est leur ouvrage, ou la loi des plus forts." — La Bruyere, 
 vol. ii., p. 213. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that many of the extravagant inde- 
 cencies of early Quaker times were avowedly suggested by the Holy 
 Spirit, when men and women went about "in all the nudity of 
 nature" to indicate our nothingness and our equality. " Some went 
 naked by couples, as a sign of how the beasts went into the ark." 
 And when respectable persons sought to cover these nude performers, 
 who said " It is not we, but God that goeth naked in us," they were 
 rebuked, and told that " they had hindered the work of the Lord." 
 These indecencies too were defended by Thomas Story, who, speak- 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 141 
 
 or healthier than another, by nature, or by the right use 
 which he makes of nature. One man is by inheritance 
 more intellectually gifted than another ; or, assuming all 
 men in this sense to be equally gifted, one man has made 
 (what Mr. Buckle calls) better " progress of opportunity" 
 than another. The same may be said of our moral nature, 
 whether you appeal to Socrates or St. Paul, to George 
 Fox or Joseph John Gurney. Such also is the law of the 
 social system, the gradations of which were recognized by 
 Christ himself, when lie bade his tempters " render unto 
 Caesar the things which were Caesar's, and to God the 
 things which were God's." A wealthy man is not only 
 rich in worldly goods, but he is rich also in responsibility. 
 If he adjusts and properly balances the two, by a well-re- 
 gulated distribution of his means he will, whether he be 
 a religious man or not, do a good in his generation which 
 shall not die with him, but pass on to those who are to 
 succeed him. And if he adds to his moral excellence a 
 chaste and lofty piety, which developes itself in the exercise 
 of every Christian virtue, is he not one of the many instru- 
 mentalities by which God deals with his poor and erring 
 ones? And so is he not worthy of all homage from weaker 
 brethren, who have benefited by his charities, and profited 
 by his example ? Will God hereafter accuse a poor and un- 
 lettered one of idolatry, because he made decent obeisance 
 , to an individual who has proved to him the only personal 
 
 ing of the command of the Lord to Isaiah, " to go and loose the 
 sackcloth from off his loins," &c. says : " It was not inconsistent with 
 the Lord to command this sign ; nor is nakedness any indecency in 
 his sight, since every creature came naked from his all-creating 
 hand. Thou canst not therefore (he concludes) make it appear that 
 those Quakers [who indecently exposed themselves] were not com- 
 manded of God to do as they did in that case."— Journal of the Life 
 of Thomas Story, p. 49. 
 
142 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 revelation which his mind could gather in of something 
 more than human excellence? O no! the Almighty 
 would be as likely to rebuke the lilies of His hand for 
 bending their heads to the storm, or the many flowers of 
 the field for opening their tiny cups to the mid-day splen- 
 dour of the Sun. And a poor man also is not only poor 
 in the things of the world, but poor also in opportunity 
 and responsibility. The circle of his dependents, perhaps, 
 is limited to a scolding wife and dirty children. But these 
 two — the rich and the poor — bear to each other in the 
 social system a relationship which cannot be disturbed 
 without shaking to its foundations the God-created insti- 
 tution of inequality. 
 
 It is so likewise in the spiritual world. Not only 
 are the specialties of our natural endowments, as also 
 of our social conditions, from the very cradle to the 
 grave, so varying, and so essentially different from each 
 other, as to make it an easy thing for one man to realize 
 religious truth, and constitute himself a home for the 
 indwelling of the Holy Spirit; whilst another, within 
 sound of the " sabbath-bells," and with no particular 
 predilection for vicious courses, has not a chance from the 
 very beginning to the end of life. Is it nothing to a man 
 to have begun life with religion ? — to have seen its attrac- 
 tiveness in the example of a godly father, or in the tender 
 solicitudes of a righteous mother ? How often has one 
 tempted to fall in later years, long after those who nur- 
 tured his young life, have gone down to their graves, 
 turned to the memories of those early days, and been 
 saved thereby from a fall which seemed all but inevit- 
 able ! Is there no specialty in this, favourable to spiritual 
 influences and to religious growth ? Has not such an 
 one inherited an advantage which has shrouded him from 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 143 
 
 his cradle, and which one who lost his parents while he 
 was but an infant, and was left penniless, was never gifted 
 with ? Is there any equality in this ? We are accustomed 
 not sufficiently to consider how largely spiritual advan- 
 tages may be the mere accident of material ones. It is 
 an easy thing to be religious when you have but small 
 opportunities for being vicious. Look at this picture by 
 a modern word-painter, and say whether it is not a truth- 
 ful and appalling delineation of the daily life of thousands 
 of our younger population. Are there no material in- 
 fluences here to counteract and destroy intellectual and 
 spiritual vigour, and to proclaim aloud the strange 
 inequality of our lot ? " The roar of machinery deafens 
 the ear of tender childhood. The boy grows pale upon 
 the loom, and the girl grows stunted by the whirling 
 wheels, who should be drinking in knowledge at its foun- 
 tains, or rushing from school to play with the lambs upon 
 the flowery sward, or chasing the butterfly by the laugh- 
 ing stream, or gathering health and strength, beauty and 
 symmetry, where the bee collects her honied stores for 
 working days and winter-time. The click of shuttles and 
 deafening toise of manufactory are in ears that should be 
 filled with no sound but the shouts and laughter of play, 
 the melody of si ging birds, or the hum of the busy 
 school. 1 '* 
 
 The learned author of the Apology, deals largely, ac- 
 cording to wont, in platitudes respecting the impropriety 
 of honouring this individual more than that, or in giving 
 any the outward homage of obeisance. To say that " these 
 honours are not that honour which cometh from above/' 
 
 * The City, Its Sins and Sorrows, by Thomas Guthrie, D.D., 
 p. 101. Edinburgh, 1857. 
 
144 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 is to state what everybody very well knows, and is entirely 
 able to appreciate. So also of the affirmation that " all 
 the children of Lucifer are possessed with the same ambi- 
 tious proud mind, seeking and coveting titles of honour." 
 But it is a gratuitous assumption that a man is neces- 
 sarily in league with Lucifer, because he has been taught 
 to manifest outward as well as inward respect to his 
 friends. He may be a very good Christian, doing his duty 
 to God, and those by whom he is surrounded, let him be 
 possessed of what title he may, or let him look forward to 
 the reception of such title as the reward of an honour- 
 able ambition. Is the illustrious Historian of our Third 
 William to be condemned as " a Child of Lucifer," because 
 he has received at the hands of the Sovereign who appre- 
 ciates his services, a titular distinction which imparts a 
 social elevation, in accordance with the analogy of nature, 
 and with the intellectual superiority and labour of its 
 recipient ? Is the great theatre of hereditary and acquired 
 distinctions to be monopolized by a starched democracy 
 prepared to revolutionize the world by forced interpreta- 
 tions of Scripture, and the narrowest views of human life 
 and duty ? Is the system of rewards and punishments to 
 be abandoned with impunity ? Are we to be reduced to 
 the dead level of social communism ; and are those who 
 recognize the propriety of outward demonstrations of 
 respect, to be told by a few exclusionists, who, as a cor- 
 porate Society (in spite of individual excellencies which 
 I have not been backward in acknowledging) have 
 been most distinguished by the grotesqueness of their 
 apparel, the affected simplicity of their manners, and the 
 passive neutrality of a frigid indifferentism, that thereby 
 they are conforming to the spirit of this world, and, that 
 their works are of their father the Devil ? 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 145 
 
 Nor do the esthetics of manners and of costume need 
 any illustration from the conduct of Cornelius and Peter, 
 or from that of an angel and St. John ; and minds only 
 of the most perverted character could make reference to 
 these personages (as Barclay does), and solemnly affirm 
 that to take off your hat to your neighbour, like a gentle- 
 man, is to " rob God of His glory." In this manner the 
 littleness of even an educated miud can connect a man's 
 hat with the sublimest thing presented to our imagination. 
 He who can thus think and speak of Almighty Goodness, 
 must have not only most imperfect apprehensions, but most 
 trivial conceptions, of God's dealings with His creatures; 
 and attribute to Him personal qualities which are happily 
 at variance with the general notions of that Being who is 
 " slow to anger, of long suffering, and great kindness. 1 ' 
 
 The real fact is (as I have before intimated) that society 
 does not pretend to take its manners, any more than it 
 does its science, from Scripture. Why, indeed, should it ? 
 Have not improvements been effected in both, to ignore 
 which is simply to affirm yourself to be an unprogressive 
 fool? And may not the Gospel be made more available, 
 may it not be more adapted to the cultivation of Christian 
 character, and to the salvation of man, by our recognition 
 of the help which it may derive from other aids, and from 
 other not less Godlike sources ? 
 
 " Beauty, good and knowledge are three sisters 
 That doat upon each other, friends to man, 
 Living together under the same roof, 
 And never can be sunder'd without tears." 
 
 And are not these three sisters the beautiful handmaids 
 of Religion in thousands of happy homes, generating and 
 sustaining " a perpetual sunshine," wooing and winning 
 the divine influences of Grace ? 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 "I believe" — says one who to our finite apprehension 
 was called away too early, and before his work was done, 
 — " I believe that no one can form right judgments of the 
 significance of man's destiny or duties — or adequately even 
 appreciate the characters of great men — without endea- 
 vouring to borrow light from a wider field of vision than 
 is contained within the boundary lines of that Special 
 Revelation of God, which is written with pen and with ink. 
 Truly all that relates to the discharge of our own personal 
 every-day duties, and to the understanding of our own 
 individual responsibilities as members of the Church of 
 Christ — we may attain to with no other knowledge or 
 thoughtfulness but about the instincts and experience of 
 our own nature, and the ordinary worship and teaching 
 of the Church. But would we attempt to be something 
 wiser than this, would we try to understand and sympa- 
 thize with the position and the interests of other portions 
 of God's great human family — then, I say, I feel sure that 
 we must take into our consideration very much more than 
 these things : we must add to the History of the Jews an 
 authentic History of the World, and to the great facts 
 of the Catholic Creed the great Facts also of Nature and 
 Experience."* 
 
 Of a truth this attempt to isolate the Gospel of Christ 
 which is tmprogressive as an abstract fact — " the same 
 yesterday and to-day and for ever 1 ' — from the beautiful 
 handmaids of morality, and physical science, and social 
 improvements, which have power to make it progressive as 
 a relative fact, and place it within the reach of many who 
 Avould not otherwise receive it, by leading them " from 
 nature up to nature's God" — this attempt, I say, to 
 isolate the Gospel, and make it a standard of appeal, in 
 
 * Lectures on Great Men, by Frederic Myers, M.A., p. 48. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 147 
 
 matters which have nothing to do with religion — was what 
 led alike in earlier times to the persecution of the " starry 
 Galileo," and in these later times to the decadence of 
 Quakerism.* And this decadence in an age when is day 
 by day recognized more fully the help which these hand- 
 maids are capable of giving in Gospel ministrations — how 
 they can weave into harmonious blending the triple com- 
 pound of body, mind, and soul, and bring us nearer to 
 God through manifold instrumentalities and by varied 
 means. Surely this constitutes that comprehensive wisdom 
 which adapts the religion of Christ to every capacity, and 
 makes it what it was designed to be ; but, alas ! what it is 
 not, even to men and women who think of scarcely anything 
 else — " The shadow of a Great Rock in a weary land." 
 
 It were wise for all men to receive at once and for ever 
 the fact, that the God who has chosen to communicate 
 to us Eternal Truth through the channel of men as weak 
 and fallible as ourselves, has permitted, for purposes 
 known only to Himself, the Divine Light of His heavenly 
 endowment to be stamped with the infirmity of human 
 agencies. And it cannot be doubted that if it had been 
 reserved for these later times, to witness through the 
 medium of mortality the first revelations of those writings 
 which Ave term Scripture, we should still have the same 
 records of doctrinal verity, but clothed in a less obsolete 
 phraseology, modified by the facts of a more recent 
 history, and of a more extended tradition, and freed from 
 those unscientific disfigurements which are up to the 
 standard of physical knowledge in Apostolic days, and 
 which are only disfigurements by comparison with that 
 
 * " Indeed in every page of history we meet with fresh evidence 
 of the little effect religious doctrines can produce upon a people, 
 unless preceded by intellectual culture." — Buckle's History of Civili- 
 zation in England, p. 239. 
 
 2 
 
148 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 modern standard which it has been permitted us to 
 attain to. So, too, if the Hebrew legislator — the pro- 
 phet of the Elder Dispensation — were again to pen his 
 sublime narrative, the first words of which might still 
 be, " In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the 
 Earth," he would tell us in perspicuous language, by refer- 
 ring to objective geological facts, that that " Beginning" 
 embraced myriads of ages antecedent to the first Mosaic 
 record, which (in the opinion of many) chronicles only the 
 Adamite creation.* 
 
 If we look at the Bible in this way, without trying to 
 make it out to be more than it really is, or was ever 
 intended to be, we shall be better able to apprehend its 
 sublimest truths, and feed thereupon our weary souls with 
 true comfort and assurance. Whereas, if we try to force 
 its meaning, to give it a significance foreign to its divine 
 intentions, to ignore the imperfections incidental to the 
 medium of its communication to us, and reconcile those 
 parts which are irreconcilable, we become lost in the 
 bewilderment which leads to " the luxury of doubt and 
 disquiet." Eor, after all, if the astronomical hintings of 
 Holy Writ clash with the exactness of modern astro- 
 nomical discoveries ; if the Mosaic record and modern 
 Geology are not to be reconciled; if the physical laws 
 which toil and time have opened to us, tell us that we 
 do know of the wind " whence it cometh and whither it 
 goeth" — what do these facts prove ? Only that it was 
 
 * It is hardly necessary, though it may be desirable, to observe, 
 that many geologists are of opinion that modern discoveries are 
 perfectly reconcilable with the Mosaic record. It does not appear 
 to me at all necessary to force this reconcilement, either for the 
 establishment of a physical science or for the integrity and authen- 
 ticity of Holy Writ. Neither Geology nor Judaism (as Mr. Baden 
 Powell has ably demonstrated) can affect the vital truths of 
 Christianity. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 149 
 
 not consistent with the designs of Almighty "Wisdom to 
 anticipate the material results of scientific labour, and 
 deprive man of the stimulus to hopeful and progressive 
 knowledge, which exercises so beneficial an influence upon 
 the species, by revealing even to " His servant Moses" 
 .what was known only to Himself. 
 
 Such a course, indeed, has hampered us with doubts 
 and tried the steadfastness of our faith. But does not 
 this constitute our discipline ? And has not this disci- 
 pline the assurance of continuity in that however much 
 we learn we still feel ourselves to be (what Sir Isaac 
 Newton said we were) " children gathering shells upon 
 the shores of an unknown ocean "? " The more know- 
 ledge we get, the greater capacity we have unsatisfied." * 
 How many ardent and aspiring natures have been absorbed 
 in the sense of this great truth — even to the reaction of 
 weariness and oppression ! " I am tired," said one who 
 died but young; "I am tired of trying to know, seeing 
 how little we can know." t But there is a comfort. 
 " Now we see through a glass darkly ; but then face to 
 face : now we know in part ; but then shall we know even 
 as also we are known." 
 
 3. That it is not lawful for Christians to use superfluities in 
 Apparel as are of no use, save for Ornament and Vanity. 
 
 Though the rigid adoption of " plainness of apparel" 
 may seem to be a very trifling thing, in connexion with the 
 life and stability of a Christian Society, there is abundant 
 reason to think that by their peculiar views on the 
 aesthetics of dress, Friends have largely paved the way to 
 the dismemberment of their corporate organization. For, 
 in truth, neither plainness of speech, nor peculiarity of 
 
 * Bp. Jackson. 
 
 t Alfred Robert Vaughan. 
 
150 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 dress, nor singularity of manner are unimportant facts, if 
 it can be shown that they have a relative bearing upon the 
 numerical force of a religious sect. They become anything 
 but trifles, both singly and in the aggregate, when they 
 expose the younger and sensitive members of this strange 
 eclecticism to unnecessary trials. Life is made up of 
 trifles, by which we are often much more influenced, and 
 which are often more difficult to contend with, than larger 
 and more momentous incidents ; and it has become a 
 matter of general observation that the " still small cour- 
 tesies" of society, and even the customary regulations as 
 to costume, are not to be violated with impunity. It is 
 admitted, too, by those who have most intimate acquaint- 
 ance with human nature, and with individual character, 
 that we can often buckle ourselves up to face a formidable 
 danger, when we lack the energy to resist the gradual 
 undermining of a series of petty influences, or to stand 
 against the assaults of apparently trifling enemies. 
 
 I have before alluded to the fact that George Fox adopted 
 a leather dress, in that it was quiet and unobtrusive, and 
 would require hut little reparation. "William Penn tells 
 us that the dress of male Friends originated in a distinct 
 revelation from heaven. It is worthy of transcription, as 
 showing the visionary mental condition of an hysterico- 
 cataleptic female, whom we are called upon to credit, as 
 having received a direct and personal communication from 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 '■' A sister of the family of Penn, of Penn, Buckingham- 
 shire, a young woman delighting in the finery and pleasures 
 of the world, was seized with a violent illness that proved 
 mortal to her. In the time of her sickness she fell into 
 great distress of soul, bitterly bewailing the want of 
 that inward peace which makes a death-bed easy to the 
 righteous. After several days' languishing a little conso- 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 151 
 
 lation appeared after this manner. She was some hours in 
 a kind of trance ; she apprehended she was brought into a 
 place where Christ was, by whom, could she but deliver 
 her petition, she hoped to be relieved. But her endeavours 
 increased her pain ; for as she pressed to deliver it, He 
 turned his back upon her, and would not so much as look 
 towards her; but that which added to her sorrow was, 
 that she beheld others admitted. However, she gave not 
 over importuning Him, and when almost ready to faint, 
 and her hope to sink, He turned one side of his face towards 
 her, and reached forth his hand and received her request, 
 at which her troubled soul found immediate consolation. 
 Turning to those about her, she repeats what had befallen 
 her, adding, ' Bring me my new clothes, take off the lace 
 and finery/ and charged her relations not to deck and 
 adorn themselves after the manner of the world ; for that 
 the Lord Jesus, whom she had seen, appeared to her in the 
 likeness of a plain countryman, without any trimming or 
 ornament luhatever, and that his servants ought to be like 
 Him."* 
 
 Now we know, from Penn's own confession, that as h 
 
 * No Cross, No Crown, by William Penn, part ii. p. 138. This 
 vision is very analogous to those which unhappy young women, of 
 peculiar temperament and singularly weak minds, are now expe- 
 riencing under the Religious Revival in Ireland. In the pamphlet 
 to which I have before alluded, by Archdeacon Stopford, there is a 
 cnse recorded of a young woman who declared she had been admitted 
 into heaven, and seen God himself. If there be some good in this 
 Revival, it is impossible to over-estimate its frightful evil. It is no 
 exaggeration to say that hundreds of women, " praying to be struck " 
 (i. e. converted), are being invited by fanatical preachers into the 
 dreadful mazes of hysteria ; and that scores are being driven into a 
 state of insanity. It may be worth while to ask whether Jesus 
 Christ ever produced hysteria, or drove people into madness, by His 
 preaching ? " Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord ?" 
 
152 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 drew nearer to the close of life, he thought he had greatly 
 misused it, " wasting good effort" upon very unnecessary 
 trifles. In the preface to one of his works, entitled Fruits 
 of Solitude, he records : — " I have now had some time I 
 can call my own, a property I have ever before been short 
 of, in which I have taken a view of myself and of the 
 world, observed wherein I have gone wrong, or wasted good 
 effort ; and I have come to the conclusion that if I had to 
 lead my life over again, I could serve God, my neigh- 
 bour, and myself, better than I have done, and have seven 
 precious years of time to spare, though I am not an old 
 man yet, and certainly have not been one of the idlest." 
 
 Whatever may have been Penn's early regulations with 
 regard to dress, and the general conduct of his domestic 
 establishment, we have pretty good evidence that in later 
 years he was far from insensible to the pleasures of the 
 table, the amusements of the world, or the superfluities of 
 apparel. And I deem it right to refer to this fact, because 
 the Admiral's son is one of whom Quakers have been 
 proud, and the supposed slur upon whose memory by 
 Lord Macau] ay they have so strongly resented. It had 
 been well for them had they adopted the matured, as well 
 as the first and extravagant, opinions of this early apostle 
 of their creed. 
 
 It is clear that Penn had passed through the fire of 
 persecution, without finding that his principles or his 
 comforts were much improved by it. He saw when it 
 was too late for the principles, though, happily, not too 
 late for some little after-taste of ease and retirement, that 
 he had exposed himself to much unnecessary hardship, 
 and that his cause would have made more substantial pro- 
 gress, had the lives and conduct of those who initiated it 
 been characterized by a less intemperate bearing, by more 
 discreet language, by some sort of respect for the customs 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 153 
 
 and conventionalisms of the age, and a wise consideration 
 for the feelings of the people. His relapse, therefore, into 
 harmless pleasures was liable to, and of course received, 
 that misconstruction which men are ever ready to put 
 upon the motives and conduct of their neighbours. And 
 our Friend was censured instead of applauded, for a tardy 
 recognition of the uselessness of self-imposed suffering in 
 a cause which was not worthy of him. 
 
 William Penn promulgated a very wholesome maxim in 
 respect of dress,* which he seems himself to have rather 
 exceeded : for we are told by his biographer that he was 
 vain of his personal attire. "The dress and habits of the 
 Penns of Pennsbury, had as little of the sourness and 
 formality which have been ascribed to the early followers 
 of George Fox, as the mansion and its furnishings." "The 
 ladies dressed like gentlewomen, wore caps and buckles, 
 silk gowns and golden ornaments. Penn had no less than 
 four wigs in America, all purchased in the same year, at 
 a cost of nearly £20. To innocent dances and country 
 fairs he not only made no objection, but countenanced 
 them by his own and his family's presence."f 
 
 Yet this was the man who, at an earlier and less dis- 
 creet period of his life, standing covered in the presence 
 of his recovered Sovereign, said : " Keep on thy hat 
 Friend Charles;" and who, when under the influence of 
 a fanaticism which now had happily forsaken him, wrote : 
 "Dancing is the devil's procession; and he that entereth 
 into a dance entereth into his procession. The devil is 
 the guide, the middle, and the end of the dance. As 
 
 * " Choose thy clothes with thine own eyes, and not with 
 another's ; neither unshapely nor fantastical, and for use and 
 decency, not for pride." — Some Fruits of Solitude. 
 
 t William Penn, an Historical Biography, by W. Hepworth 
 Dixon, p. 385. 
 
154 
 
 A FALLEN FAITII. 
 
 many paces as a man maketh in dancing, so many paces 
 doth he make to go to hell."* 
 
 The sumptuousness, indeed, of Penn's mode of life, 
 during his second sojourn in America, was something truly 
 splendid. " A country house, with an ample garden, was 
 the governor's passion; and he spared neither care nor 
 money to make the grounds of Pennsbury a little Eden." 
 We are told of " a great quantity of damask table-cloths, 
 and fine napkins." " Anne Nichols was his cook, and he 
 used to observe in his pleasantry, ' Ah ! the Book of 
 Cookery has quite outgrown the Bible, and I fear it is 
 read oftener — to be sure it is of more use/ His cellars 
 were well stocked ; Canary, claret, sack, and Madeira, being 
 the favourite wines consumed by his family and his guests." 
 In one of his letters to his steward, he writes: — " Prav 
 send us some two or three smoked haunches of venison 
 and pork — get them from the Swedes; also some smoked 
 shads and beefs ; ' adding, with a delicious unction, ' The 
 old priest at Philadelphia had rare shads.' "f 
 
 After his final return to this country, Penn was again 
 anxious to seek the shores of the New World. " Every 
 month he seemed finally determined to go over, as things 
 (which were now in a bad state) had always gone on 
 smoothly under his own control. But his want of means 
 continually interfered. At the end of this year he wrote 
 to his agent : — ' I assure thee that if the 2^eople luould only 
 settle £600 a-year upon me as governor, I would hasten 
 
 over Cultivate this among best Friends. 1 
 
 But the best Friends would do nothing."^ 
 
 It should seem, therefore, that even the first disciples of 
 
 * No Cross, No Crown, by William Penn, part ii., p. 96. 
 f William Penn, an Historical Biography, pp. 382, 383. 
 % Ibid. p. 419.— Bancroft's History of the United States. London, 
 1853. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 155 
 
 Quakerism could grow weary, as they well might, of per- 
 secution and self-denial, and sigh, like other men, for the 
 flesh-pots of Egypt. The lofty spirit of Divine Apostleship 
 had died out. A long series of trials had made the founder 
 of the Pennsylvanian colony not insensible to the good 
 things of this life, and not over-anxious to labour " without 
 money and without price," for Truth and the Gospel's sake. 
 
 I cannot help believing, from what has been com- 
 municated to me, and from what I have observed in one 
 of the strongholds of the Society of Friends, that their 
 peculiarities of dress have exercised a marked influence 
 in estranging from them the younger generation. Nor is 
 this to be wondered at. In such an age as the present 
 one, when competition is so great, and so much turns 
 upon an advantageous position in the general social 
 system, ordinarily endowed and educated minds fail to 
 perceive that the excellence of Christian character, or the 
 usefulness of a Christian gentleman, turn upon the adop- 
 tion of a particular, and that too a grotesque, costume. 
 They will not, therefore, subject themselves to a yoke 
 which excludes them, upon the low principle of a teetotal 
 pledge, from many opportunities of social pleasures, and 
 not a few worldly advantages. They perceive, from their 
 brief youthful experience within their hereditary fold, that 
 there is danger to the soul's healthfulness in the constant 
 imbibition of the belief, that to " use " the world is only 
 another name for " abusing it." " Moreover," says Mr. 
 Maurice, " the young Quakers look about, and ask them- 
 selves what it means that they are kept from the world ? 
 If the world means those who do not walk in the light, 
 there is a world within the Society as well as without it."* 
 
 * The Kingdom of Christ, or Hints to a Quaker, by F. D. Maurice, 
 M.A. London, 1842. Vol. i. p. 65. 
 
156 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 They are sensible that it is morally wrong, and cowardly, 
 not to " use " a thing because many unprincipled men 
 have " abused " it. # And they have learned that " there 
 is always a departure from the true spirit of the Christian 
 life, when importance is attached to forms and means, as if 
 they were at once substance and end ; and when the idea 
 of excellence gets transferred from the special attainment 
 itself, to the outward sign or profession of pursuing it." 
 
 Joseph John Gurney foresaw the tide which was setting 
 in against "plainness of apparel," and he vainly used his 
 influence to stem it. Mrs. Fry, who certainly knew human 
 nature better than her brother, and had more extensive 
 sympathies with human weakness, had a clear apprehen- 
 sion of the error of throwing impediments in the way of 
 Christian growth, by trying to link petty trivialities to 
 great principles. She says : " It is certainly a very serious 
 thing to put upon young persons any cross in their religious 
 course, which Christ does not call them to bear.^f This 
 sentiment was only the natural result of another, founded 
 upon personal observation: — "It must be remembered 
 that no study is equal to that of mankind, and nothing so 
 likely to enlarge the mind as society, and the good and 
 cultivated of any nation." J 
 
 Surely no intelligent person can seriously maintain that 
 He who said, " Suffer little children to come unto me and 
 forbid them not," calls upon any young person, or any 
 adult, to wear a particular dress which more or less, in 
 proportion to its grotesqueness and its infrequency, excites 
 the ridicule of mankind. It may be near the truth to 
 state, that any class-dress, not appertaining to a distinct 
 
 * " From the abuse of a thing to the non-use the consequence is 
 not always valid." — Evelyn's Diary. 
 
 t Memoir of Life, vol. ii., p. 118. % Ibid. vol. ii., p. 146. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 157 
 
 worldly profession (such as the military or the clerical), 
 which is not regulated hy pecuniary exigencies, is a false 
 system, based upon an ignorance of social requirements 
 and necessities. It is obvious that the fallacy of that 
 system is made more glaring to public apprehension, in 
 proportion to the ludicrous nature of the apparel which it 
 inculcates, and the extent of its deviation from that in 
 general usage. Yet we have before us a Society gifted 
 with the experience of two centuries, struggling for what 
 it calls the sacredness of its principles, founding those prin- 
 ciples upon a false estimate of human life, and responsi- 
 bility, and divine precepts, as plainly stated in the Gospel. 
 
 I do not shrink from affirming, that to take an honest, 
 open-hearted, generous boy, and dress him in a garb which 
 is certain to excite the ridicule of other boys, telling him 
 at the same time that a voluntary subjection to ridicule is 
 " a testimony to the cause of Truth/' is to tell him — what 
 all young Quakers are finding out and by their desertion 
 testifying — what has a much closer affinity to human 
 obstinacy than to divine veraciousness. Such a policy is 
 as short-sighted as it is false and unkind, and there is no 
 excuse for speciousness or unkindness to those whom Arch- 
 bishop Whately calls " the to-morrow of Society." The 
 boy will soon ask you why he is to dress and talk differently 
 from other boys ; and you can give the answer about " tes- 
 timony," &c, or " leaving it in the hands of the Lord, who 
 in due season will not fail to make a way for our help;"* 
 
 * This expression in reference to dress actually occurs in one of 
 J. J. Gurney's letters to a young Friend. It is not to be wondered 
 at that Quakers acquire in after life such false notions of God as 
 made the writer alluded to so constantly miserable, when they are 
 thus taught in youth that the Deity attends to their personal attire. 
 
 There is nothing more remarkable than the desire of the Society 
 of Friends to help young "convinced" persons, and assist their 
 
158 
 
 A FALLEX FAITH. 
 
 and you must bear in mind that as your son progresses the 
 Spirit may not vouchsafe to him the same apprehension as 
 to yourself. But there is a period prior to this. If at the 
 time when he is first subjected to the discipline of a dis- 
 tinctive apparel, the lad is a high-spirited one, he will fret 
 under it ; his natural simplicity will be distorted ; his cheer- 
 fulness will be affected ; and ten to one but he plays the 
 hypocrite. If he has an hereditary allotment of Quaker 
 "seriousness/ 1 * you do but more depress his moral and 
 physical nature, and reduce it below the standard of 
 healthful integrity. In another type of youthful mind 
 this procedure will at once produce self-complacency, and 
 spiritual self-pride. No one who knows anything of phy- 
 siology or psychology — no one who knows anything of the 
 reciprocity of action between body and mind— will gainsay 
 this statement. Observe, too, the selfishness which this 
 system inculcates ; and how the subject of it is constantly 
 led to think of himself, instead of others. 
 
 Parents who have any acquaintance with children, with 
 those little human hearts, and the manifold infirmities 
 
 tender consciences, as compared with tlie means which are adopted 
 to render this important aid. Coutrast, for instance, the enforce- 
 ment of a grotesque costume, which your own knowledge of the 
 human mind must teach you would be prejudicial to the health of 
 many a moral nature, with the following excellent Rule : " For the 
 sake of tender and young convinced Friends an earnest concern is 
 on the minds of many, that no occasion of stumbling or offence be laid 
 in their way ; but that all such as have made longer profession with 
 us may be careful to walk in all holiness, and uprightness of con- 
 versation, and in an humble waiting upon the Lord ; that their 
 example may tend to the encouragement and strengthening of those 
 who have been more lately visited to a steady and constant perse- 
 verance, into the path into which the Lord hath directed their 
 feet." — Rales of Discipline, 3rd Edition, 1834. 
 
 * This is a favourite word with Quakers, significant of a very 
 morbid religious condition. 1 cannot find it in the Bible. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 159 
 
 which have been transmitted to them ; of the clangers of 
 the scene on which they are called to play their part, will 
 not hesitate to confirm this observation, whether they do 
 or do not walk worthy of a Christian vocation. Why 
 should you treat your child like this ? "Why should you 
 do violence to every feeling of his nature ? You do not 
 know the cruel torture to which you are subjecting him, 
 nor how you are undermining that equipoisement of his 
 compound being, which is more essential than anything 
 else for the engraftment of a pure and healthy religion. 
 You are fostering doubt and disquiet at the very com- 
 mencement of his career, when all should be cheerfulness 
 and peace. You are fencing about that young life with 
 the difficulties at its very outset, from which he will never 
 recover, when everything may depend upon a free and 
 unfettered start. Are there not difficulties enough in- 
 separable from our race, without creating unnecessary 
 ones in the shape of unmeaning restrictions ? Are not 
 our paths sufficiently steep and rugged ? Why, to send 
 out your little one into the world, and tell him that the 
 sacrifice of not dressing like other children is required of 
 him as " a testimony to the cause of truth," is to instil 
 into his mind the falsest morality ; and as he grows older 
 he will be the first to find it out and tell you so : and then 
 you will be doomed to experience what poor Mrs. Fry was 
 subjected to, in the falling away one by one of her many 
 children from the faith in which she had nurtured them. 
 It is a certain fact, an indisputable truth, that no man 
 can afford to expose his children to what Luther said was 
 more likely to frighten the devil than anything else— 
 laughter. If it can disconcert that obtrusive personality 
 of evil — how much more a tender child ! 
 
 It is marvellously strange to consider how differently 
 two minds will view the same subject, both being equally 
 
160 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 solicitous for the advancement of morality and truth. See 
 what antagonistic opinions were advanced by two excellent 
 individuals living in the same world, gifted with immortal 
 souls, bound on the same journey, destined for the harvest 
 or of glory or of shame. Joseph John Gurney writing 
 about apparel observes : " It is worthy of remark that 
 although an alteration in dress, and the substitution of 
 ' thee and thou' for the plural pronouns, when addressed 
 to an individual, appear to be sacrifices of little cost, there 
 are few things which in tender minds occasion a greater 
 struggle. As is the smallness of the required sacrifice, so 
 appears to be the greatness of their fear to offer it. But 
 is it not Satan, the father of all lies, who makes the path 
 of duty, even in very little things, appear distressing and 
 difficult ? And would not the constraining love of Christ 
 render every Cross to our own wills which we might 
 undergo for His sake, both easy and pleasant?"* 
 
 Sydney Smith writing on the same subject says : 
 " Never teach false morality. How exquisitely absurd 
 to teach a girl that beauty is of no value, dress of no use! 
 Beauty is of value — her whole prospects and happiness in 
 life may often depend upon a new gown or a becoming 
 bonnet : if she has five grains of common sense she will 
 find this out. The great thing is to teach her their just 
 value, and that there must be something better under the 
 bonnet than a pretty face, for real happiness."-^ 
 
 Observe the extraordinary words which are introduced 
 into the former quotation of nine lines and a half, merely 
 upon the simple question as to whether one shall say 
 "thee and thou," or dress different from his neighbours. 
 
 * Observations on the Distinguishing Views and Practices of the 
 Society of Friends, p. 440. London, 1834. 
 t Life and Letters, edited Lady Holland. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 161 
 
 " Sacrifice," " tender minds/' " struggles," " Satan the 
 Father of all lies," " path of duty," " distressing and 
 difficult," " constraining love of Christ," " Cross to our 
 own wills," " for His sake." But perhaps there are some 
 minds for which this is proper treatment. " He that can 
 receive it, let him receive it;" and God help us all, by 
 giving us the " clothing of a right mind," and by teaching 
 us to " put on the Lord Jesus." 
 
 And there is another very strong objection to a dis- 
 tinctive mode of costume. Not only is it injurious to the 
 moral health of childhood and youth, by attaching means 
 of recognition to one's hatter or one's tailor, rather than 
 to an unvarying propriety of conduct ; but it opens the 
 door to a large importation of specious sanctity in adult 
 life. I do not mean anything offensive to a Society which 
 has numbered so many excellent men and women in its 
 ranks, when I say, that there is a general feeling that how- 
 ever strictly moral Quakers may be, there is about them, 
 as a class, a sad want of ingenuousness and manly straight- 
 forwardness. They are almost all alike, both as regards 
 their vestments and their virtues. They have been cast 
 in the same mould ; and they betray none of that healthy 
 individuality of character, which is essential to a high-class 
 social condition. This would seem to be the inevitable 
 result of a system of passivity and neutrality. It is so true 
 as to have become a proverb, that you cannot extract from 
 a Friend a direct answer to a plain question. He is afraid 
 to commit himself to anything positive ; and gives the 
 preference to a negative or evasive reply.* I have known 
 
 * " The nomenclature of this Society consists in a remarkable 
 manner of qualified terms ; so that speaking as well as dressing in 
 neutral tints, would seem to be one of the elements of their social 
 intercourse." " Afraid of the evil without they have neglected to 
 
 Jl 
 
162 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 individuals entertaining the highest respect for Friends, 
 and believing them to be in weighty matters men of the 
 most undeviating integrity, who have yet been oppressed 
 with a conviction that in matters of lesser moment they 
 are not equally trustworthy. And, as a body, they have 
 oeen thought to be lamentably deficient in many things, 
 by the best of their own community. Mrs. Fry observes : 
 " I cannot deny that much as I love the principle [of 
 Friends] — earnestly as I desire to uphold it, bitter expe- 
 rience has proved to me that Friends do rest too much on 
 externals; and that valuable, indeed jewels of the first 
 water, as are many amongst them, yet there are also 
 serious evils in our Society, and amongst its members." 
 And again : " I am certainly a thorough Friend, and have 
 inexpressible unity with the principle, but I also see room 
 for real improvement amongst us : may it take place. I 
 want less love of money, less judging others, less tattling, 
 less dependence upon external appearance."* 
 
 The entertainment of the feeling to which I have alluded 
 is by no means unnatural, when " the high professions" 
 of Quakers are taken into consideration. Any one who 
 has but a tolerably accurate knowledge of human nature 
 
 provide against that within ; and acting too much upon the nega- 
 tive system have taken it for granted that a condition of apparent 
 emptiness and nothingness must necessarily be one of innocence, 
 purity, and peace. The positive culture of all the human faculties, 
 as the natural inheritance of man received from the hand of God, 
 and the direction of such faculties into chaunels of healthy and 
 wholesome exercise, even when they have no relation to the claims 
 of trade or commerce, would seem in former times never to have 
 constituted any portion of the philosophy of this otherwise shrewd 
 and intelligent Society." — Friends at their Firesides, by Mrs. Ellis, 
 pp. 3, 4, 6. London, 1858. 
 
 * Memoir of Life of Elizabeth Fry, vol. ii., p. 109. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 163 
 
 must be aware, that the constant introduction of a sancti- 
 monious phraseology ; that perpetual allusions to details of 
 domestic life, aud personal apparel, as immediate reve- 
 lations of the Divine will, and individual intimations of 
 " a saving grace," are liable to bring even true religion 
 into contempt, by exposing its most offensive and perverted 
 type to mocking and ridicule.* He must be sensible 
 that these objectionable views and practices may become 
 instrumental to the greatest mischief, in the hands of per- 
 sons of weak minds, and strong emotional sensibilities. 
 And if they add to this (I am speaking of women in 
 particular), strong prejudices, little knowledge of character, 
 and an overweening confidence in their own certificated 
 authority t to visit families at their homes — what tools ot 
 mischief may they not become, what discord may they not 
 create, what disquietude, instead of peace, may they not 
 minister to unstable characters ! Then — what follows ? 
 Some are driven from the Society. Bitter feelings are 
 aroused ; and the fugitives from the Quaker fold resent 
 their injuries by a highly coloured narrative of their wrongs, 
 and the religious trivialities of those from whom they have 
 but just separated. Such details of course find a ready 
 acceptance with the public. 
 
 Some incident of this kind is the explanation of the 
 appearance of two works, which have been published within 
 the last few years, by a lady in Ireland, who was bound to 
 
 * " I believe and hope she means well," wrote Mrs. Montague of 
 the Countess of Huntingdon ; " but she makes herself ridiculous to 
 the profane, and dangerous to the good." 
 
 t Certain female members of the Society receive " certificates," 
 at the monthly or quarterly meetings, authorising them to visit 
 Friends at their own houses, and ply them with " ghostly counsel 
 and advice." 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 the Society of Friends by the strongest hereditary ties, 
 and Who has made revelations of internal Quaker life, 
 which, if true (as I believe they are, though they may be 
 highly wrought pictures) are enough to upset any religious 
 organization extant in which they may obtain. She avows 
 that she has made no statement which is not strictly vera- 
 cious, and that if Friends challenge her, she will publish a 
 second edition, giving the names of the parties referred to. 
 I am not aware that any answer has been made to this 
 challenge; and as I know that some of the incidents re- 
 corded by the authoress of The Story of my Life, bear a 
 striking analogy to some which have been personally com- 
 municated to myself, I make no hesitation in alluding to 
 them.* 
 
 * The following refer to life, manners, and dress : — 
 
 " One Friend, eulogizing a departed sister, said that she had 
 honoured her Christian name ; that she had always been such a 
 consistent Friend, that she had never indulged her daughters in 
 the vain fashions of the world — no, she had never even allowed them 
 to wear silk gowns." — Quakerism, or the Story of my Life : by a Lady 
 who for fort;/ years was a member of the Society of Friends, p. 113. 
 
 " Then he prayed that the Lord would make her willing to give 
 up the vain fashion of wearing curls, and plaiting her hair ; and 
 that He would teach her that these were not little things." — Ibid. 
 
 " Another time the overseers came to say that they had heard of 
 our having a French master ; that they knew it was not generally 
 objected to by Friends, but they felt easier to warn us. There was 
 great danger in it ; it was insidious. Friends were tempted to say 
 things in French they would not say in English — such as Monsieur 
 and Madame. They did not wish to be officious, and they hoped we 
 would not think them so ; but their office was a very important one, 
 and they were anxious to fulfil their duty faithfully." — Ibid., p. 126. 
 
 " A young lady in her first attempt at preaching said : — A concern 
 had long rested on her mind that Friends should walk close ; that 
 she was jealous for her dear sisters ; that she wished they could see 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 165 
 
 If it be affirmed that the adoption of a particular dress 
 can have had no injurious effect upon the Society of 
 Friends, inasmuch as in Roman Catholic countries one sees 
 everywhere the most grotesque-looking mortals, dressed in 
 peculiar garbs which were assumed in early childhood ; 
 the reply is obvious — that the institutions of this country 
 are essentially different from those of any Continental one. 
 Religious orders, and distinctive ecclesiastical costumes, 
 
 it right to wear plaits in their bonnets instead of gathers ; that she 
 hoped no one would think this a trifle ; it was by trifles people fell : 
 and that it was under a feeling of great weight, she was made willing 
 to say these few words." — Ibid., pp. 32-3. 
 
 Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, and friend of Charles Lamb, 
 was " put under dealing " for having the prefix of Mr. to his patro- 
 nymic, over his office; and he was " visited and sat with," we are 
 told in his Life, for wearing a warm waistcoat which his only 
 daughter had worked for him. He pleaded its warmth, and that 
 the colours were only chocolate and drab ; but in vain. " It was 
 carpet-work, and therefore unbecoming for a member of our highly 
 professing religious Society." — The Society of Friends, by Mrs. J. B. 
 Greer, author of The Story of my Life, vol. L, p. 152. 
 
 " With diffidence I propose the enquiry whether the walking 
 arm-in-arm to the dinner-table, at a Quarterly Meeting, is not too 
 near an approach to the fashions of a fleeting world ? Does it not 
 look a little too much like the selection of partners at a ball ? With 
 all due regard for true urbanity and Christian courtesy, I can see 
 no solid reason for the practice referred to."- -Ibid., vol. i., p. 218. 
 
 " To him the message was sent that the Lord had a controversy 
 with him, for wearing heel-straps to his trousers ; anil unless he was 
 faithful in surrendering to the requirement of the Spirit, and was 
 prompt to put away so Babylonish an invention, he would have his 
 poi-tiou with the unbelievers, and become a cast away." — Ibid., 
 vol. i., p. 164. 
 
 " To one she said : ' He ought not to wear gloves on first-days ; 
 because as he was not in the habit of wearing them every day, it 
 was going to meeting with a lie in his right hand.' " — Ibid., vol. i., 
 p. 1C5. 
 
166 
 
 A FAIXEN FAITH. 
 
 are recognized facts to all Catholic minds in all Catholic 
 lands. These children are training for a profession ; and 
 the vestments are a part of the profession. They do 
 not aspire to mix with the world and reap from it 
 pecuniary advantages. Cropped heads, dirty skins, mean 
 animal countenances, coarse clothing, all having their 
 connexion with the Church, are as much an integral 
 part of a Spanish or Italian constitution, as is liberty 
 of conscience part of an English one. As every tenth 
 man you meet in Paris is said to be a soldier, so every 
 tenth man you meet in Naples is said to be an eccle- 
 siastic. Which, by the way, is the most moral capital of 
 the two ? I am afraid the soldier of the sword will carry 
 the day against the professed soldier of the Cross. In 
 Naples, at least, the garb of the avowed follower of Christ 
 does not secure a life moulded after the pattern of Christ. 
 And, alas, I fear that this London of ours will tell but a 
 sorry tale by the side of both ; and that a modern divine 
 has delineated with but too faithful a pen the " sins and 
 sorrows " of another city, when he writes : — " They call 
 the street in Jerusalem, along which tradition says that a 
 bleeding Saviour bore his Cross, the Via Dolorosa ; and I 
 have thought that our own street (Princes Street, Edin- 
 burgh) was baptized in the sorrows of as mournful a 
 name. * 
 
 That which meets the gaze in every Italian town is of a 
 different nature to that which appals one in our great 
 London — It is not the slavery of a material vice, but the 
 immaterial thraldom of mind and soul. Little children 
 clothed in monastic garbs, with scarce a trace of anything 
 but complete animalism about them ; their heavy eyes 
 sunken and wan ; their strangely developed heads already 
 
 * The City, Its Sins and Sorrows, by Thos. Guthrie, D.D., p., 57. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 167 
 
 bowed down by the weight of years; a bewildered look, 
 which seems to say, ' whither are we going, and where does 
 this degrading life lead to V You may see this sort of thing 
 to perfection in Rome on a great festival. I remember, one 
 broiling day in June, standing in that great piazza, which is 
 the wonder of the world, and the hope of all pilgrims, to see 
 trooping by the pomp of the Imperial City, upon the Feast 
 of Corpus Christi. And " God's representative on earth" 
 was borne above the prostrate crowd, amid the clang of 
 martial music, and the tramp of soldiers, and the idiotic 
 gaze of candle bearing monks, and the sad careworn look of 
 that most unnatural of all monstrosities — childhood which 
 has never known laughter, since it was baptized into this 
 demented shame. And as Pius IX. passed in front of his 
 great Cathedral, " proud of their trampled nature," fully did 
 the mind realize what John Sterling said, when he beheld 
 a similar spectacle : — " I have seen the Pope," he writes, 
 "in all his pomp at St. Peter's ; and he looked to me a 
 mere lie in livery. How any man with clear head and 
 honest heart, and capable of seeing realities, and distin- 
 guishing them from scenic falsehoods, should, after living 
 in a Romanish country, and especially at Rome, be inclined 
 to side with Leo against Luther, I cannot understand."* 
 
 To look again at the question of " plainness of apparel." 
 It is absurd to advocate uniformity of colour, and the 
 entire absence of ornament, by a reference to a dis- 
 pensation of temporal rewards and punishments, where 
 Jewish women of a worldly character were stated to have 
 specially called forth the Lord's indignation. It is not 
 necessary to advocate extravagance in dress, nor super- 
 fluities in crinoline : they are to be condemned alike by 
 
 * Life of John Sterling, by Thomas Carlyle. 
 
168 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 Scripture and by our own moral perceptions, though 
 only (as it should seem) in a very limited measure 
 by our present social code. But there is no occasion 
 for absurd restrictions upon this point. He that feedeth 
 the hungry, and clothes the naked ; who " thinketh 
 no evil," and doeth no sin; who is mindful of that 
 verity which William Penn moulded into epigramma- 
 tic beauty — " the truest end of life is to find the life 
 that never ends," need not consult the prophets, or Beau 
 Brummel, as to his outward adornments.* Yet Barclay and 
 Joseph John Gurney quote the former as an authority for 
 dress in the 19th century ! See what the prophet says : 
 " Moreover, the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion 
 are haughty, and walk with stretched forth neck and 
 wanton eyes,- walking and mincing as they go, and making 
 a tinkling with their feet, therefore the Lord will smite 
 
 * "There is no harm in onr wives and daughters having two or 
 three silk gowns in wear at once, if our means permit it, though our 
 great grandmothers might have been content with one for their life- 
 time. In the same way improvements in the elegant and imitative 
 arts bring many things within the reach of the middle classes, which 
 could not have been thought of, and could not once have been secured, 
 
 by the higher If God ' gives a man power to get wealth' 
 
 in this 19th century of ours, in which materials are cheapened, and, 
 when beautifully wrought into various objects of use or ornament, 
 come in these forms so within the reach of numbers as to be general 
 and customary possessions — why, the man in question, however 
 spiritual or devout he maybe, reed not he supposed to do wrong by 
 availing himself of the advantages of the day he lives in. If he can 
 keep a carriage — let him keep it ; and let him call it a carriage, and 
 not attempt to sophisticate his soul by describing it with the Quaker 
 as only ' a leathern convenience.' The great thing is for the Chris- 
 tian to be able to justify himself to his own conscience and before 
 God."— Is it Possible to Make the Best of Both Worlds ? by Thomas 
 Binney,pp. 121-2. 
 
A FALLEN* FAITH. 
 
 ]G9 
 
 with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of 
 Zion. In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of 
 their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, 
 and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the 
 bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets, the ornaments of 
 the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the ear- 
 rings, the rings, and the nose-jewels, the changeable suits of 
 apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping 
 pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the 
 veils," &c * 
 
 Is it implied by those who make use of this quotation 
 as a weapon against modern dress, and as an exhortation 
 to a Quaker garb, that women generally do " walk with 
 stretched forth neck and wanton eyes, walking and mincing 
 as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet ? " Have 
 they " nose-jewels, and wimples, and crisping pins " ? 
 And is it or is it not true that if one wanted to find " a 
 scab on the crown of the head,'' he would go in quest 
 of it to a poverty-stricken district, and to a half-starved 
 family, or to where men are " clothed in fine linen, and fare 
 sumptuously every day " ? In a word, would he be more 
 likely to discover it above the crinoline of Belgravia, 
 or the tattered petticoat of Bethnal Green ? Why, we may 
 ask, are the lofty inspirations of the Jewish prophet thus ^5 
 prostituted to the childish imbecility of a modern sect ? 
 
 It is true that St. Peter enjoins upon women as their 
 best ornament " a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the 
 sight of God of great price and St. Paul " a modest dress 
 with good works." The former Apostle says that their 
 adorning ought not to be " that outward adorning of plait- 
 ing the hair and of wearing gold;'' and the latter commands 
 
 * Isaiah, ch. iii., v. 16-24. 
 
170 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 them not to " adorn themselves with curled or braided hair, 
 or gold, or pearls, or costly array." But the general opinion 
 of Biblical critics (who are quite as obnoxious to visita- 
 tions of the Spirit as the Society of Friends) is — that 
 what is meant by these expressions is, rather the forbid- 
 ding of that vanity which looks to outward adornment as 
 the chief thing, to the neglect of the culture of that meek 
 and quiet spirit, and that modesty of character, which may 
 alike be developed under drab or purple. " The negation 
 is not absolute," says Burkitt, " but comparative. The 
 Apostle does not absolutely forbid the wearing of orna- 
 ments or costly apparel by persons to whose state in life 
 they are suitable ; but he forbids pride and vanity, affecta- 
 tion and ostentation in wearing them. As if he had said, 
 God will have the hidden man of your heart adorned with 
 grace, and delight more to see that than your bodies adorned 
 with precious jewels and costly apparel." 
 
 And it may be that if St. Paul could now descend 
 amongst us, and take his walk in Hyde Park, instead of 
 in the streets of Damascus, he might see there no little 
 outward display, and (what at first might have the appear- 
 ance of) much vanity. But he would at once discern 
 beneath that veil the purity of maiden hearts, and the 
 *- dignity of honoured matronhood. He would know that 
 he could enlist ample services in the cause of Charity, in 
 the cause of labours of love, in the cause of any develop- 
 ment of Christian earnestness : and he would be content 
 with that readiness and with that sacrifice, without refer- 
 ence to any distinctive peculiarity of garb. He would see 
 the world, indeed, different from what it was when he left it 
 1800 years ago ; he would gladly recognize its intellectual, 
 and social, and religious progress. He would do homage to 
 the efforts which are everywhere being made to ameliorate 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 171 
 
 a population herded together under conditions and circum- 
 stances very different from anything which obtained in his 
 day, and of which no man living at that remote period, 
 and unendowed with prophetic vision, could have formed 
 any conception. He would predicate the Crown for every 
 Cross meekly borne and patiently endured : he would 
 dwell on the spotless purity of those beauteous flowers 
 which go to make up the true Christian life, as compared 
 with (what have been well called) " the thistles of theo- 
 logical controversy;" and he would assuredly deprecate 
 the constant attempt, which is so characteristic of some 
 religions, to make smooth places rough, to put bitter for 
 sweet, to hamper ourselves with voluntary chains and with 
 unnecessary restrictions, which do not constitute whole- 
 some discipline, nor lead the heaven-bound pilgrim nearer 
 God. And if the Apostle wandered on through this modern 
 Babylon, he might not find every picture presented to his 
 gaze so morally healthful as the one we have just delineated. 
 For he might turn aside into places where religion was 
 professed, and where advertisements would invite him that 
 " D. V." it was about to be preached. And would he not 
 wonder what Christian love was doing, when he heard from 
 various pulpits — as one may hear any Sunday in London — 
 men ask a solemn blessing on their undertakings, and then 
 vilify the religion of their neighbours with all the vehe- 
 mence of unbridled maniacs ! He might in a modern 
 bear-garden see crowds of self-complacent men, and emo- 
 tional females, paying so much a head to listen to the 
 profane jocularities of a modern Boanerges. 
 
 One of the reasons assigned by Quakers for simplicity 
 of apparel is, that much time is wasted and misemployed 
 by undue attention to fashions, and the elaborations of 
 personal attire. And there is much reason in the remark. 
 
172 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 It takes an infinity of combing and cosmetics to get up the 
 plumage of some birds, both young and old. " Plainness 
 of apparel/' says Joseph Jobn Gurney, " has been adopted 
 by the Society of Friends to prevent the undue engage- 
 ment of time, but, chiefly, because ornament in dress is 
 employed to gratify that personal vanity which, with every 
 other modification of the pride of the human heart, Chris- 
 tians are forbidden to indulge, and enjoined to subdue."* 
 Now, those who are most familiar with the customs and 
 the domestic details of these singular eclectics affirm that 
 they devote a great deal of time to the small niceties 
 of costume, f Their personal attire certainly implies as 
 much ; and it is generally admitted that though they are 
 not " clothed in purple," that the " fine linen" is not 
 abandoned, and that the wealthier sort do " fare sump- 
 tuously every day." Their dresses are of the very best 
 and most costly materials, different only from that of 
 others in a peculiarity of shape, and in a rigid adherence 
 to the varying shades of one neutral colour. J It has 
 always appeared to me somewhat singular that, with their 
 
 * Observations on the Distinguishing Views and Practices, dec, 
 p. 431. 
 
 t Mr. Clarkson, who wrote fifty years ago, must be excepted. 
 But he is a greater " Apologist" for Quakerism than ever Barclay 
 was. He negatively approves of all Quaker habits, and almost 
 endorses all Quaker doctrines. — Vide Portraiture of Quakerism, 
 3 vols. 
 
 X " They have never adopted any particular model, either in form 
 or colour, for their clothes. They have regarded the two objects of 
 decency and comfort: but they have allowed of various deviations 
 consistent with these. They have, in fact, fluctuated in their dress." 
 — Portraiture of Quakerism, vol. i., p. 283. This statement is not 
 borne out by the modern experiences of those who are intimate 
 with rigid Quakers. Gurney writes on this subject with as much 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 173 
 
 desire to adhere rigidly to Scripture models, drab should 
 have heen selected by Quakers in preference to one of the 
 " primitive" colours. The shades of Tyrian dye form a 
 striking feature in the attire of the personages who figure 
 in both the Old and New Testaments. And I believe it 
 may be affirmed that neither the Mother of God, nor her 
 Adorable Son, are to be found represented in any picture 
 by ancient masters (who are noted for singular truthful- 
 ness in the accessories of detail), clothed in other than the 
 brightest colours.* I have seen most of the Continental 
 Galleries, and I cannot call to mind a single picture con- 
 taining the Divine Personality, or the meek and gentle 
 medium of His Incarnation, in which they do not both 
 stand out upon the canvas as much by their brilliant vest- 
 ments as by their superhuman aspect. How is this? 
 What is the explanation of the fact ? Is it not that even 
 " He who did no sin" felt it to be his duty to fall in with 
 the manners and customs of the age in which he trod 
 this earth? He sate with others at meat; He drank 
 wine; He wore blue, or purple, or crimson; He "ren- 
 dered unto Csesar the things which were Caesar's, and 
 
 earnestness and " deep feeling" as though he were engaged in the 
 highest mysteries of his faith. He speaks of the " danger of 
 despising 'the day of small things,'" in allusion to dress; and 
 intimates that it is " a chain graciously constructed by Divine Provi- 
 dence fur important and desirable purposes." " Nothing," he again 
 observes, " is insignificant which really appertains to the Divine 
 Law ; nor are there any parts of that law more important than 
 those with which our sentiments respecting plainness are con- 
 nected." 
 
 * A modern Quakeress — a convert — confesses to a horror of drab. 
 Her biographer says : — " Bright colours Mrs. Opie delighted in, 
 and she had a sort of passiou for prisms." — Memorials of the Life of 
 Amelia Opie, p. 334. 
 
174 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 unto God the tilings which were God's." And we may 
 be sure that He who knows all our weaknesses, and how 
 much material help we require even in things spiritual, 
 will never desire us to refuse those embellishments of 
 physical life by which He has in His Providential care 
 surrounded us. " With the experience of past ages before 
 us, we may well learn to distrust every specious attempt 
 to exaggerate morality, or to attach ideas of blame to 
 things innocent or indifferent. This overdoing of virtue 
 never fails to divert the mind from what is substantially 
 good, and is, moreover, the almost invariable symptom of 
 a transmuted or fictitious pietism."* 
 
 The general plainness which embraces apparel embraces 
 also speech. It is hardly necessary to dwell upon this 
 point, when one considers the time that has been wasted 
 by Christian controversialists in discussing the question 
 of " Thee and Thou." It may suffice to remark, that it is 
 another instance of obstructiveness to the conventionalisms 
 of Society; another attempt to eliminate from Scripture, 
 and confirm by the plea of grammatical accuracy, prac- 
 tices which do not require the assent or reproof of Holy 
 Writ. That sacred volume was given us for a wiser 
 purpose and for a nobler end. Neither the integrity of our 
 principles, nor the excellence of our lives, are in any sense 
 to be gauged by our adoption of an obsolete phraseology, 
 or by our fondness for verbal eccentricities. We do not 
 take our language, or our science, or our social customs, 
 from the Bible. It is the Handbook only of our Religion, 
 and ministers solely to the higher purposes of life. 
 
 It is singular that, as a matter of fact, Quakers are not 
 remarkable for their plainness, and certainly not for their 
 
 * Natural History of Enthusiasm, by Isaac Taylor, p. 198. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 175 
 
 straightforwardness, of speech. Nothing is positive or 
 definite. Everything is of a doubtful and negative cha- 
 racter. Not that they desire to misstate, and say what is 
 not true : but they are evasive ; so that if what they say 
 should, unwittingly, prove to be not strictly correct, the 
 looseness of their terms may screen them from the charge 
 of a positively un veracious affirmation. They seem, in 
 fact, to have a general mistrust of themselves ; which 
 gives the character of redundancy and involution both to 
 their written and oral phraseology. The following is a 
 very singular instance of this, and is not the less remark- 
 able as proceeding from a man who spent his life in 
 bill-broking, and in amassing a princely fortune in the 
 city of Loudon. While at Cannes, on his journey home- 
 wards from Nice, Samuel Gurney, in dictating a letter to 
 his brother in England, told his daughter to write : " I 
 am thankful to have got thus far on my journey; but," 
 and he paused and meekly said, " No ; don't put that. It 
 is so much to be thankful. Write it is cause for thank- 
 fulness ; that is much safer."* This seems but a feeble 
 realization of the poet's picture of augmenting spiritual, 
 with declining physical, strength : — 
 
 " The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, 
 Lets in new light through chinks that time has made. 
 Stronger by weakness wiser men become 
 As they draw near to their eternal home." 
 
 All the letters and journals of Friends which I have 
 
 * Memorials of Samuel Gurney, by Mrs. Thomas Geldart, p. 135. 
 London, 1857. 
 
 The literature of the Society of Fiiends being at a low ebb ia 
 not to be marvelled at, when such a book us the above is given to 
 the world. 
 
176 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 met with are characterized by this singularly involuted 
 and elaborate phraseology, which has but slight affinity to 
 the inculcated plainness of Quakers. It is not, ' I think 
 so-and-so/ but, ' / am led to apprehend so-and-so.' It is 
 not, 1 when we are in heaven/ but, ' when we are favoured 
 to arrive at the heavenly shores' It is not, ' I hope I 
 shall be able to make such a sacrifice,' but, ' I trust that I 
 shall be made willing to see the desirableness of yielding to 
 the requirements of truth ; or, ' / have a concern that it will 
 be laid upon me to make such a sacrifice to the requirements 
 of truth.' It is not, ' I am glad to say that I am very com- 
 fortable at Kotterdam, and I think I did right in coming/ 
 but, ' Through tender mercy I was favoured to feel much 
 rest, refreshment, and peace at Rotterdam, and much evi- 
 dence that I was in my right place.' (These specimens 
 are authentic.)* 
 
 But howsoever rigid may have once been the adoption 
 of a neutral and sanctimonious phraseology; whatever 
 austerity and plainness may have characterized internal 
 Quaker economy ; how ludicrous soever may have been 
 the apparel of most " seriously convinced" Friends — it is 
 certain that these absurdities are yielding to the mild 
 
 * The official phraseology of the Society is equally verbose and 
 involuted. The following is the first paragraph of the ' certificate' 
 granted to Mrs. Fry, on her Irish mission : " To Friends of the 
 Nation of Ireland. — Dear Friends, our beloved friend Elizabeth 
 Joseph Fry has in a weighty matter informed this meeting, that 
 her mind has been for many years impressed with a belief that it 
 would be required of her to offer to pay a religious visit to the 
 Meetings of Friends in Ireland, pretty generally ; and also to stand 
 resigned to further religious service, both among Friends and those 
 not of the Society, as Truth might open the way ; and that she 
 apprehended the time was nearly come for her to enter thereon" &c. 
 This is a curious specimen of plainness of speech ! 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 177 
 
 sway of a healthy and enlightened progress.* Some of 
 the best Quakers are scarcely to be distinguished from 
 other men by their dress, or by the general conduct of 
 their domestic establishments. They keep their carriages, 
 they are seen to move in public, they are less exclusive in 
 their selection of companions, their houses are handsomely 
 furnished, they are more tolerant of other creeds, they 
 dwell less upon their favourite and fundamental doctrine 
 of the immediate direction of the Spirit, and they alto- 
 gether comport themselves in a manner more closely 
 assimilating to that of Christians in general. The fears 
 expressed by Joseph John Gurney ; the strong opinions 
 and the unqualified censures of Mrs. Fry, at the hollow- 
 ness and hypocrisy of many within the fold ; the falling 
 away from the society of her own family, and of so many 
 leading Friends — these facts have disgusted the self- 
 complacent, disquieted the excellent, and relaxed the 
 discipline of all. " How happy," said Peter the Great, 
 " must be a community instituted on Quaker principles \ " 
 " Beautiful ! " said Frederic of Prussia, a hundred years 
 later : " It is perfect if it can last." Ah me ! it has not 
 lasted, and that — because of its imperfection. 
 
 * " It is, however, affirmed by some persons of credit, who are 
 eye-witnesses of what passes among the members of this sect, that 
 the modern, and more especially the English Quakers, whom trade 
 has furnished with the means of luxury, have departed from this 
 rigid and austere manner of life, and daily grown more reconciled to 
 the outward pleasures and enjoyments of the world. These more 
 sociable Quakers are also said to modify and explain the theology 
 of their ancestors in such a manner as to render it more rational 
 than it was in its primitive state. At the same time it is certain 
 that many of the members of this sect have a false notion, or no 
 notion at all, of that ancient theology." — Moskeim's Ecclesiastical 
 History, (Friends). New edit, by Dr. Maclaine. London, 1833. 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 This imperfection, I repeat, was fully recognized by 
 that excellent philanthropist, who broke down the prison 
 bars and unloosed the prison chains. Several of her 
 opinions upon this subject have been recorded in a pre- 
 vious part of this Essay. But there are many others of a 
 similar nature to be found in her Memoir. " — Evils which 
 often make my heart mourn, and have led me earnestly 
 to desire, that we might dwell less on externals, and more 
 on the spiritual work ; then I believe that we should be 
 as a people less in bonds, and partake more of the glorious 
 liberty of the children of God."* And again: "The 
 affairs of our Society cause me real anxiety and pain, and 
 reconcile me in measure to so many of my children 
 leaving Friends." f " I see no authority for supposing 
 ourselves to be more of a chosen people, the select few, 
 than all who are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb."J 
 
 Expressing her regret at her son J leaving the pale of 
 
 the Society, because of her love for it, she adds : " Yet no 
 outward names are in reality of much importance in my 
 view, nor do I think much of membership with any 
 outward sect or body of Christians — my feeling is that 
 if we are but living members of the Church of Christ, 
 this is the only membership essential to salvation." § 
 Joseph John Gurney writes : " Alas ! for the power 
 of the world, the flesh, and the enemy ! An increasing 
 neglect of meetings is apparent in some of our mem- 
 bers and attenders; and how can we expect it to be 
 otherwise with those who refuse to take up their cross 
 and follow Jesus? Some painful fears have also found 
 their way to my heart lest a lurking infidelity should have 
 
 * Memoir of Life of Elizabeth Fry, vol. ii., p. 109. 
 t Ibid., p. 204. t Ibid., p. 247. § Ibid., p. 141. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 179 
 
 insinuated itself into the bosoms of some of our juniors."* 
 He says again : "The condition of that part of the Church 
 of Christ, which is within the borders of " Quakerism/' 
 is a cause, from time to time, of much humiliation and 
 depression. Life is at a low ebb amongst us, I greatly 
 fear j and the removal from the scene of warfare of so 
 many promising young persons, seems, to our finite eye, 
 almost to preclude the hope of revival. ''f 
 
 How, indeed, should it be otherwise ? With no standard 
 of appeal, the Bible being even to some of the best of 
 them a sealed book (see Gurney's and Mrs. Fry's Life) ; 
 with minds wrought into the most frightful state of 
 nervous sensibility by reason of an inability to realize, 
 equably and serenely, the doctrine of the " Inward Light." 
 " A sealed book," too, is it to the worst of them, for the 
 same reason ; hence " the lurking infidelity," and the 
 desertion, of the younger members. 
 
 The fact is, the Society of Friends has never recovered 
 from the effects of that "desolating heresy" — the in- 
 evitable result, in minds of a certain class, of the doctrine 
 of the " Inward Testimony of the Spirit" — which Isaac 
 Crewdson speaks of as having swept thousands, in the 
 United States of America, " into the gulf of Hicksism and 
 Deism/' It is certain, from his own admissions, that 
 even the excellent Joseph John Gurney was in a very 
 embarrassing situation with respect to the Society, during 
 the last twelve months of his life; and accusations of 
 unorthodox views and writings were brought against him. 
 All, in fact, seems tending to demonstrate the insecure 
 position of that eclecticism which Barclay predicted should 
 " grow to the consuming of whatever should stand up 
 
 * Memoirs of J. J. Gurney, vol. i., p. 3C8. 
 
 t Ibid., p. 375. 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 to oppose it," and to indicate that in another half century 
 not one stone shall be left upon another to tell its event- 
 ful tale. 
 
 4. That it is not lawful to use Games, Sports, Plays, nor, 
 among other things, Comedies, among Christians, under the 
 notion of Recreations, which do not agree with Christian 
 silence, gravity, and sobriety, fyc. 
 
 It will be observed that this proposition is based upon 
 the assumption that a state of mind engendered by 
 " silence and gravity " is salutary and desirable. Whereas, 
 really, it is about the most morbid and unnatural state to 
 which any young nature can be reduced. I have before 
 dwelt upon the great importance of what is termed cheer- 
 fulness. It is the life spring of young minds. It is the 
 exuberant gratitude of manhood to that God who " giveth 
 all things richly to enjoy." It is the crown of old age, 
 confident in the retrospective usefulness of a not mis-spent 
 life, and hopeful in the prospective glories which are the 
 heritage of the faithful. " He that is of a merry heart 
 hath a continual feast." A modern author speaking of a 
 Swedish parson says : " He did not disdain secular recrea- 
 tions ; his religion was cheerful and jubilant ; he had found 
 something else in the Bible than the lamentations of 
 Jeremiah. There are so many Christians who — to judge 
 from the expression of their faces — suffer under their 
 belief, that it is a comfort to find those who see nothing 
 heretical in the fullest and freest enjoyment of life."* 
 And Sydney Smith says: <: I thank God who has made 
 me poor that he has me merry." Cheerfulness of some 
 
 * Northern Travel,by Bayard Taylor, London, 1858. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 181 
 
 sort is absolutely essential to perfect moral health, and 
 therefore to the correct engraftment upon it of the highest 
 Christian excellence. And I will take this opportunity of 
 expressing my belief, that very much of that morbid 
 " seriousness " so characteristic of the Society of Friends, 
 arises from the effort which is made at too early a period 
 to impress the mind of childhood with ideas of the " great 
 awfulness" of God, and of the "terrors of the Lord." It 
 is not presenting the most beautiful feature of the Gospel 
 Revelation to the most beautiful emanation from the 
 Divine essence — a young and spotless child. It is not 
 appealing to the highest part of that wonderful life which 
 is to know no ending ; but rather to its very worst feelings. 
 It is appealing, in fact, to fears and terrors, instead of to 
 hope, and affection, and love. It is overweighting the 
 cheerful elasticity of youth, and ignoring the poet's dictum, 
 that 
 
 " Hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth 
 Are children of one Mother." 
 
 Let us look at the thing in a more simple and familiar 
 way. Supposing you send your boy to school, and he 
 writes home to you and says that he is happy ; that his 
 schoolmaster is so kind, and quite idolized by all the boys ; 
 that he (the master) has such a happy way of putting 
 everything before them that they cannot help learning 
 it, if only to please him ; that all the subordinates are of 
 the same character, — that, in fact, he likes school quite 
 as well as home. Or if you are fortunate enough to hit 
 upon a modified " Dotheboys Hall," and the dear little 
 fellow, whose tearful face at parting you cannot get out 
 of your mind, writes you, that the master is very harsh 
 and severe, that he flogged two boys yesterday, that he 
 gave " a hundred lines each " to six others, that every 
 one is dreadfully afraid of him, and that Johnny is in a 
 
182 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 terrible fright lest his turn may come to-morrow. Now 
 which of these two systems (and they are the extremes of 
 latitude between which are endless degrees) is most likely 
 to develope your child into an honest, loving, open, gene- 
 rous, manly fellow? — which into a timid, nervous, dejected, 
 youth, or else into a violent, resentful, and bullying man ? 
 The first school I was ever at was kept by a fiend — not 
 by a man. I have seen him day after day, for the mere 
 sake of enjoying their animal sufferings, flog six poor little 
 devils in leather breeches who had the ill-fortune to be on 
 the charitable foundation. (0 Charity, how is thy name 
 misused, and how are thy purposes perverted !) Such an 
 one must have spun cockchafers on a pin when a boy 
 himself, and crunched bluebottles with tremendous zeal. 
 Yet he now wears the mantle of the Apostles, and has 
 received the hereditary mandate, " Go teach all nations." 
 I knew one whose young nature drooped under that 
 terrible system : I know others who were so cowed and 
 trampled by it that they did not rally from its effects for 
 years; and I believe that the finest feelings of my own 
 nature have never recovered from the real cruelties which 
 I there saw enacted. Yet this fiend passed for a Saint, 
 and now he has become an Apostle. 
 
 "Who hath not seen dissimulation reign — 
 The prayers of Abel linked to deeds of Cain ?" 
 
 But, with the best and purest intentions, and with the 
 most anxious solicitude for their children's spiritual wel- 
 fare, Quaker parents have such a thorough ignorance of 
 human nature, and such terrible misapprehensions of Divine 
 Love, that there is very much analogy between the latter 
 of the two systems which I have mentioned, and the pri- 
 mary notions which they instil into the youngest and most 
 simple minds. And if these minds are naturally of a 
 nervous kind, what peculiar judgment and discrimination 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 183 
 
 do they not require in their educational treatment ! Such 
 as the following picture reveals, for instance : " I do not 
 look back" (writes J. J. Gurney, autobiographically recall- 
 ing his own impressions of his early life) — " I do not look 
 back upon my childhood with much comfort or satisfaction. 
 . . . . I was a very fearful nervous child, not, I believe, 
 fractious in temper, nor by any means destitute of a relish 
 for enjoyment, but acutely alive to suffering of mind. 
 Often in the night I was overtaken by an indescribable 
 nervous agitation, as if the very walls were falling down 
 upon me to crush me; and many a time did I spring from 
 my bed and seek refuge with some kind friend or sister, 
 particularly my sister Elizabeth, who well understood me, 
 and never failed, as occasion required, to pity and protect 
 me."* It is fair to state that Gurney's own first religious 
 impressions were of Love and Mercy, though I have 
 previously shown under what awful fears and morbid 
 apprehensions he subsequently laboured. His daughter, 
 however, who died young, has recorded her religious ini- 
 tiations : " We were very little children when he (my 
 Father) began occasionally to take us into his study, for 
 times of religious retirement and prayer. After sitting a 
 short time in silence, he would often kneel down, and pour 
 forth his prayers in the most simple words he could use. 
 I think I never shall forget the very great solemnity ; the 
 holy, and to me, as a little child, the almost awful feeling 
 of some of these occasions." f It must be bad (or what 
 we know of mental science is a falsehood) for any young 
 person to be subjected to this sort of treatment. It is the 
 first fatal step towards turning the green pastures of life 
 into "burning sands and bitter waters." 
 
 * Memoirs of J. J. fiurney, vol. i., p. 1). 
 
 t Recollections of J. J. Gurney, by hia Daughter. Appendix to 
 Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 622. 
 
184 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 Mrs. Fry says : " My remembrance is of the pleasure of 
 my childhood being almost spoiled through fear, and my 
 religious impressions, such as I had, were accompanied by 
 gloom : on this account I think the utmost care needed in 
 representing religious truth to children, that fearful views of 
 it should be most carefully avoided, lest it should give a dis- 
 taste for that which is most precious. First show them the 
 love and mercy of God in Christ Jesus." * 
 
 The consideration of this initiatory period leads us 
 naturally into youth and manhood, with their attendant 
 sports, amusements, and games. In the early years of 
 Quakerism every kind of diversion was interdicted, and 
 even education was interrupted, if the subject of it was 
 so " seriously convinced " as to believe that he ought en- 
 tirely to surrender himself to the exclusive service of the 
 Spirit."t 
 
 It is not so now. " Ancient principles" are not retained. 
 
 * Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry, vol. i., p. 10. 
 
 t " This (a sermon of George Fox's on Non-conformity to Custom- 
 ary Salutations, and on the Doctrine of the Inward Light) so 
 reached W. Caton that in due time he began to be subject to this 
 inward convincement, by which he came to be much restrained in 
 his carriage, and could not allow himself so great liberty as he was 
 wont to do ; for though he was noways extravagant, yet now he saw 
 that a true Christian must be weaned from all Vanity, and that the 
 common diversions of youth displeased God. . . . . . He had 
 
 not yet left the school ; but (though he was pretty much advanced in 
 his learning) the making of Latin verses became a burthen to him, 
 because he could not give his thoughts that liberty for invention as 
 others did ; neither could he well any longer give to the master of 
 the school the compliment of the hat, as he was used to do : This I 
 had from his own mouth. One may easily guess that hereby he was 
 brought into a strait : but Margaret Fell [a widow who was sub- 
 sequently married to Fox] seeing that he longed to be freed from 
 the school, caused him to stay at home, when he was employed by 
 her in writing, and teaching her own children." — SeweVs History of 
 the Quakers, p. 101. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 185 
 
 It is more recognized than it was, that it is hurtful to the 
 moral and physical health of children to deprive them of 
 youthful games. But young Friends are so subdued by 
 their efforts to realize the immediate and personal evidence 
 of the Spirit, that it seems unnatural to them to turn from 
 the contemplation of such an "awful" doctrine, to a game 
 at cricket or leap-frog. Hence you do not see at Quaker 
 schools that same hilariousness, and entire freedom from 
 care, which constitute the chief feature of youthful happi- 
 ness. The religion which they inherit is an abstract one : 
 it is a " meditative insulation ; " it is a selfish and centric 
 introversion, which unfits for contact with the world, and 
 converts them into unnaturally grave and " serious" men 
 before they have assumed the toga virilis. 
 
 The rule by which Quakers have generally been guided, 
 has been by that of educating their children according to 
 primitive notions. It is the old story of going to the 
 Bible for life, and manners, and general information, as 
 adapted to the 19th century. " As a Christian Society 
 they conceive themselves bound to be guided by reve- 
 lation only, while it has any injunctions to offer which 
 relate to this subject." And they refer both to the Old 
 and New Testaments, as containing chiefly prohibitory doc- 
 trines. This system has been very fatal to progress, and 
 has prevented Quakers reaching a standard which has 
 been usually attained by other religious communities. The 
 prohibition, for instance, of music, and a repudiation of 
 the desirableness of cultivating that heaven-born gift, must 
 seriously affect many natures endowed with an innate 
 perception of the harmony of sound. They would not 
 have been so gifted but for wise and beneficent purposes ; 
 and to thwart the development of such faculties is to 
 obstruct the designs of an All-wise and All-bountiful 
 Creator. Besides, all the analogies of Nature forbid us to 
 
183 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 do violence to the taste for music, by refusing its culti- 
 vation. Who so musical as that divine mistress ? Nature, 
 indeed, is only another name for harmony. All her 
 pulsations are rhythmical. " Harmony is the very being 
 of God, and the operation of his laws." It has been well 
 said that there is no Quakerism in Nature. It is an old 
 saying, but a true one, and none the less so because of the 
 tendency of the opinions of the man who uttered it. O 
 no ! God has so beautified this earth with sights and 
 sounds, that they smile upon us and greet us everywhere. 
 He has enriched the lap of Nature with varied colours 
 and perfumes. Even that bow which He hath set in the 
 clouds contains all colours, and is, without exception, the 
 most beautiful natural phenomenon. It is a prismatic 
 revelation upon which is ingrafted all our knowledge of 
 Beauty. And yet (such is the spirit of opposition in some 
 natures and societies) Friends aflecting a love for " primi- 
 tiveness/' reject the " primitive colours," and give a 
 preference to drab ! As if a rainbow or a peacock were 
 not more lovely to look at than a Quaker ! Nor is 
 Nature less varied in her sounds. She is neither mute 
 nor unvarying in her testimony. Every sigh she breathes 
 is full of harmony. There is music in the rain as it 
 patters upon the leaves ; in the song of birds ; in the 
 waves as they die upon the shore. There is music in the 
 wind as it whistles through the shrouds ; as it bends the 
 forest trees budding into their spring-time foliage, or in 
 the full glory of their summer green, or in that sere and 
 yellow clothing which is the herald of decay. And is 
 there to be nothing of a higher form grafted upon these 
 divine melodies, which will hereafter constitute the music 
 of the heavenly spheres? Have we no thoughts of such 
 things as these beyond the grave — of the tuning of many 
 harps, and the voices of redeemed men and angels singing, 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 187 
 
 " Hallelujah ! the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth " ? And 
 shall David, who has left us his undying Songs ; and 
 Haydn, who has shaped out for us another " Creation;" 
 and Handel, who has bequeathed to us a second " Mes- 
 siah" — have no higher appreciation of seraphic strains, 
 than the Quaker, who forbids the cultivation of music 
 because many men have abused it ? * 
 
 " That there is a tendency in music (says a great musical 
 authority) to excite grave, and even devout, as well as lively 
 and mirthful, affections, no one can doubt who is not an 
 absolute stranger to its efficacy ; and though it may perhaps 
 be said that the effects of music are mechanical, and that 
 there can be nothing pleasing to God in that devotion 
 which follows the involuntary operation of sound on the 
 human mind ; this is more than can be proved, and the 
 Scripture seems to indicate the contrary/'f It is satis- 
 factory to know that music is another of those accom- 
 
 * The reasons assigned by Quakers for repudiating the cultivation 
 of music, show more than anything else how thoroughly the artificial 
 system to which they are enslaved is at variauce with the beautiful 
 and sympathetic influences of Nature. They say that " envy and 
 vainglory are often excited in its pursuit ; " that it does not " tend to 
 promote the improvement of the mind ; that though it may " yield 
 soft influences, it cannot yield morality ; " it may do to soften savages, 
 but a Christian community can admit of no better civilization than 
 that which the Spirit of the Supreme Being can produce " " It does 
 not produce elevated thoughts," nor " any solid enjoyment." It 
 interferes with " silent worship ; " it is " a sensual occupation," and 
 is opposed to " spiritual feelings." Lastly, " in the course of the 
 long education necessary for this science the different disorders of 
 Hysteria are produced. — (Clarkso)i , s Portraiture, vol. i., pp. 45-50.) 
 The morbid state called Hysteria is what I have previously pointed 
 out as one of the great dangers of the Quaker creed. The scent of 
 assafoetida is almost confined to the shops of druggists, and the 
 houses of " seriously religious " persons. 
 
 t History of Music, by Sir John Hawkins, vol. iv., p. 42. 
 
188 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 plishments with which Quakers are not now ashamed to 
 embellish life. They are recognizing — too late indeed for 
 the propping up of their doomed Society, though not too 
 late for additional individual enjoyment — the healthful- 
 ness of a more extended sympathy with natural gifts 
 and endowments; of a more generous appreciation of 
 the value of material comforts; and of the moral im- 
 portance to themselves of that wholesome discipline which 
 cannot be experienced under a system of perpetual pro- 
 hibitions. 
 
 These arguments are applicable to most of the other 
 amusements and trivial occupations which have at times 
 received the interdiction of the Society of Friends. 
 Dancing, which is nothing more, when kept within legiti- 
 mate bounds, than the attudinizing the body into graceful 
 shapes, may be instrumental to physical health in young 
 persons, and is none the less acceptable because it seems 
 to require the aid of music. It need not be (what 
 William Penn said it was) " the Devil's procession" to 
 any well-regulated person ; and it may so minister to the 
 inherent sense of the beautiful, as to minister again to 
 the not so inherent sense of the good : and thus one may 
 be led higher and higher in the scale of being, through 
 its feeble instrumentality. There are some persons (of a 
 truth I do not envy them) who can hardly live without 
 dancing : and if they are none the better for it, certainly 
 they are not, of necessity, the worse for it. Again, 
 there is in some persons an innate sense of impropriety in 
 dancing; and such persons are quite right to abstain 
 from it on that very account. The acting up strictly 
 to this moral sense constitutes the very discipline which 
 eventuates in individual excellence. But to abstain from 
 an amusement simply because it has been interdicted by 
 men who are conscious of its having been abused, without 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 189 
 
 any reference to the intuitive perception of a single 
 personality in respect of it, is to play the coward, to 
 shrink from responsibility, and to evade that which may 
 be made, by reason of its danger, the medium of healthful 
 discipline. Every one knows that dancing is mentioned 
 frequently in Scripture, in connexion with music. Every 
 one who believes that the Heaven which awaits us beyond 
 the grave will be a place, and not a state of being, is 
 conscious that we shall not there be idle nor engaged in 
 passive contemplation ; but that joined hand in hand, and 
 heart to heart, with those who were our solace here, we 
 shall for ever do homage with our spiritual bodies, and 
 our spiritual faculties, to " Him that sitteth on the throne." 
 What form that homage will assume we cannot tell. But 
 it is neither unnatural nor unreasonable to believe, that 
 nothing will be wanting which can lend grace and beauty 
 to perfect adoration — that we shall never grow weary of 
 angelic dances, nor become surfeited with the music of 
 celestial strains. 
 
 By many Christians cards and all games of chance have 
 been interdicted, because they have been so notoriously 
 associated with every form of vice and profligacy. This 
 is not to be wondered at. It should be observed that 
 there is nothing natural in the cultivation of these pur- 
 suits : they are purely of an artificial character, and a 
 taste for them is often acquired at the cost of much time 
 and labour. It is certain that a well-regulated mind 
 ought to be able to do without such adventitious helps ; 
 but it is equally certain that no well-regulated mind need 
 be any the worse for them. It is the fault of the indi- 
 vidual, and not of the game, if any harm ensues from its 
 occasional practice, as a recreation, after, perhaps, some 
 severe physical or mental labour. Upon the prohibitory 
 principle of Quakerism, it would be as desirable to relin- 
 
190 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 quish all attempts to propagate Christianity, because many 
 who have embraced the faith have afterwards become 
 apostates, and perverted its sublime verities to their own 
 destruction, as to banish all those sports and amusements 
 the judicious indulgence in which is largely instrumental 
 to physical, moral, and religious health ; but the inju- 
 dicious pursuit of which has filled the world with misery 
 and sin. Of one thing I am quite certain : that any man 
 who has the moral courage to become a Quaker, from real 
 conscientious motives, has the moral courage to resist 
 temptation, be it presented in what form of allurement 
 it may ; he need not therefore have become a Quaker. 
 But I am by no means so sure that every man who has 
 grace and power to resist all temptation has the moral 
 courage to put on the straight collar or the broad-brimmed 
 hat. Neither, therefore, need he become a Quaker.* 
 
 Moderate indulgence in the sports of the field is recog- 
 nized by most men as not necessarily incompatible with 
 every form of active Christian virtue, and with the most 
 saintly aspirations of Christian excellence. There is many 
 
 * There is one indulgence forbidden by Quakers which a youth 
 cannot help being the worse for. Novel-reading is the most pernicious 
 habit of modern times. A highly-wrought fiction may lay the foun- 
 dation of incalculable mischief. It leaves behind it an unnaturally 
 excited meutal condition, which is followed by depression. Then 
 there. is another three-volumed stimulant required, or something 
 worse ; and so the seeds are laid for all sorts of bad habits, and 
 perverted sensibilities. Highly-wrought dramas may also be very 
 injurious to young persons : but there is many a well-regulated 
 mind which can derive real pleasure and instruction from the stage, 
 and make it minister to the best instead of the worst part of his 
 nature. Coleridge, by the way, says : — " Our earliest dramatic per- 
 formances were religious, founded chiefly unon Scripture History." 
 — (Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, edited by J. P. Collier, 
 Esq., p. 26.) 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 191 
 
 a one who would derive a larger sense of God's goodness, 
 and of his dealings with us, from a ride across country 
 with Mr. Kingsley, than from sitting under the depressing 
 and degrading influence of a Calvinistic sermon.* One 
 walk in " My Winter Garden "f would show me more of 
 natural, and tell me more truth of revealed, religion, than 
 any number of visits to the Surrey Theoloyical Gardens. 
 We cannot always be thinking about religion as an insular 
 abstraction ; but we may always so act as to make every 
 natural object and every natural pleasure minister to our 
 own edification : and so the entire Christian life may 
 become a many-coloured but harmonious testimony to 
 that God, who puts it into hearts to desire — not that we 
 may be taken out of the world, but that we may merci- 
 fully be preserved from its evil. Our great Wordsworth 
 says, in language to which millions respond : 
 
 " She (Nature) has a world of ready wealth 
 
 Our minds and hearts to bless — 
 Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, 
 
 Truth breathed by cheerfulness. 
 One impulse from a vernal wood 
 
 May teach you more of man, 
 Of moral evil and of good, 
 
 Than all the sages can." 
 
 Nor have the interdictions placed upon certain trades 
 
 * I heard a sermon preached last year by a young man, on 
 the text : " Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall 
 we not receive evil?" It was calculated to do as much mischief 
 to some minds, and to make all ignorant persons as miserable 
 as anything which can possibly be conceived. The preacher knew 
 no more of life, or human nature, or of " God's ways to man," 
 than the most ignorant fanatic of Fox's time ; and if all I heard 
 him say is Truth, men had better renounce Christianity to-morrow. 
 
 t See an admirable article bearing this title in Fraser's Magazine 
 for last year. 
 
192 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 increased the numerical force of the Society of Friends. 
 You cannot make the community believe that a goldsmith 
 or a jeweller may not have as good a chance of going to 
 heaven as the corn-dealer, or the vendor of elaborate brims. 
 Nor can those who are without the pale of Quakerism 
 reconcile the consistency of these prohibitions with the 
 fact, that princely fortunes have been amassed'by Quakers 
 in the Bank and in the Brewery. If it is wrong to sell a 
 brooch* because it is a pampering to that vanity which 
 lies in outward adornment, it is surely equally wrong to 
 deal in money, which is said to be the " root of all evil," and 
 in fermented liquors, which are so productive of mischief 
 among certain classes in this country. One deeply mixed up 
 in commercial pursuits and speculation has fairly acknow- 
 ledged this danger, at the same time striving to reconcile 
 his position to " the call of duty." " As for myself," writes 
 Samuel Gurney, the eminent bill-broker, to his brother, " I 
 may fairly acknowledge I have been too much occupied in 
 my worldly pursuits, and, what is worse, / do not at present 
 see my way clear out of them. I mourn over this at times, 
 but perhaps there is a ground for hope that relief may come. 
 A Lombard-street business, especially our own, is so very 
 engrossing, and does in reality require such unremitting 
 attention that escape is not easy. I sometimes feel inclined 
 to envy some of you in the devotion or calling of your 
 lives, with all its trials and baptisms. / can only salve 
 over my own mind with the thought that my worldly 
 engrossments have not been entirely my own choosing — 
 
 * " If a Quaker confine himself to the selling of plain silver 
 articles for use, little objection can be raised against his employ. 
 But if in addition to this he sell gold-headed canes, trinkets, rings, 
 ear-rings, bracelets, jewels, and other ornaments of the person, he 
 will be considered chargeable with inconsistency." — ClarLsoii's Por- 
 traiture, <ke., vol. ii., p. 67. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 193 
 
 have come upon me unsought, and may be for the present 
 my calling."* 
 
 What would George Fox have said to this ? Would 
 he not again be (to use his own words) "almost in 
 despair, and in mighty trouble/' if he could read the 
 " Memorials" of a modern disciple recently gone to his 
 rest ? Whilst we, who witness the sensible and con- 
 sistent careers of some of the best of modern Friends, 
 are happily convinced that they are day by day more 
 relinquishing the system of prohibitions, and learning to 
 realize the good Dean Sherlock's statement, that happiness 
 and prosperity on earth are compatible with salvation 
 in heaven. " Excepting the case of persecution," he 
 says, " a good man may be very rich and honourable, and 
 enjoy all the delights and pleasures of this life, as much as 
 it becomes a man to enjoy them. For the world was made 
 to be enjoyed; and a good man who observes the rules of 
 virtue, may enjoy this world as far as God made it to be 
 enjoyed; and therefore may be as happy as this world was 
 intended to make him. Which is very fit to be observed, 
 to prevent any unreasonable prejudices against the laws of 
 our Saviour, as if we could not save our souls without re- 
 nouncing all the ease and pleasures, and comforts of this 
 life ; whereas in ordinary cases we may enjoy all the hap- 
 piness this world was made for, and all the happiness which 
 we were made to enjoy in this world, and go to heaven 
 when we die."f 
 
 I propose to allude very briefly to the subject of Tithes 
 and other Ecclesiastical imposts, not because Quakers have 
 been more anxious to rid themselves of such burdens than 
 several other Christian sects ; but because they have, while 
 
 * Memorials of Samuel Gurney, p. 44. 
 t Of the Immortality of the Soul, p. 574. 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 professing a higher principle, and more Spiritual guidance, 
 earned for themselves the character of singular obstinacy, 
 and pertinacious obstructiveness. Friends do not admit 
 that the fact of their buying landed property burdened 
 with the legal impost of tithes lays them under any moral, 
 or social, or religious obligation to pay those tithes; although 
 the price of the property has probably been regnlated by the 
 extent of its ecclesiastical burden.* " This conclusion " (of 
 the necessity of the resistance of the voluntary payment of 
 tithes), says J. J. Gurney, " is by no means affected by the 
 consideration that the payment of tithes is imposed on the 
 inhabitants of this country by the law of the land ; and that, 
 therefore, the clergy have a legal claim to such remunera- 
 tion. Faithful as Friends desire to be to the legal authorities 
 of the State under which they live, it is plain that as Chris- 
 tians they cannot render to the law an active obedience, in 
 any particular which interferes with their religious duty 
 — that is to say with their duty to an infinitely superior 
 power." t 
 
 It is well to note the distinction which is drawn between 
 active and passive obedience. ' Ecclesiastical imposts are 
 unchristian/ they say, ' and not warranted by Scripture : 
 therefore we shall not pay your demands, although, accord- 
 ing to the laws of the land, they are legal : but if you 
 enforce payment in the case of tithes by taking away our 
 property in kind, or, as in the case of Church-rates, by a 
 
 * " Against compromise. With respect to a proposal about taking 
 a farm and agreeing to pay so much the more to be exempt from 
 tithes ; it is left to the several monthly and quarterly meetings to 
 advise Friends to be careful that nothing be done that tends to 
 weaken our Testimony against Tithes by any, and that such be 
 admonished as the}' see cause. 1696." Rules of Discipline, p. 262, 
 3rd edition, 1834. 
 
 t Distinguishing Views and Practices of the Society of Friends, 
 p. 251. 
 
A FALLKN FAITH. 
 
 195 
 
 distraint upon our goods and chattels, we have nothing to 
 reply to that. Resistance is as unchristian as the tithe : 
 therefore we shall •passively submit to the adoption of those 
 measures which the Legislature sanctions. 5 And now 
 comes the nice point upon which Quaker principles have 
 been so often shipwrecked. It is strictly forbidden by the 
 Society's Rules of Discipline, under pain of being " visited, 
 dealt with, and disowned," that any member should attempt 
 to effect a compromise with the engines of the law. That 
 is to say, if the seizure is in kind, and a pig is borne away 
 to satisfy the ruthless demands of the collectors, you are 
 to let the pig go, and be sold ; and you are to receive back 
 from the collectors, with the meekness of a martyr, the 
 difference between his demand upon you, and his realiza- 
 tion from this abomination of Israel.* Now this is a very 
 hard case, and a very cruel and unnecessary exaction. 
 And that the majority of Friends, not of the stern and 
 rigid school, have felt it to be so, is evident from the fact 
 of these very reasonable compromises being effected with 
 great and increasing frequency. So much so indeed that 
 in 1750 Friends are further exhorted in the Rules of Dis- 
 cipline against " unfaithfulness or collusion : a disposition 
 altogether unbecoming the nobility of Truth, and incon- 
 sistent with the uprightness it requires." f 
 
 * " Against collusion. Advised that our ancient Christian Testi- 
 mony against Tithes be not avoided or shunned, by any indirect 
 ways or causes, with landlords or otherwise ; and that Friends be 
 careful to keep a true record of the value of what has been taken 
 from them on that account, in the field or otherwise, whether it 
 exceed the demand or not, with the respective date of each suffering, 
 and the time when any suit is commenced. 1698." Rules of Disci- 
 pline, p. 262. 
 
 t Rales of Discipline, p. 264. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 In 1796 the threats of " Disownment" were multiplied 
 against the augmenting band of " irreclaimable delin- 
 quents."* In 1848 the practice of buying back goods 
 distrained was so palpable, as to lead to a still further 
 enactment : " This meeting is of the judgment that the 
 purchase by Friends of goods distrained to satisfy eccle- 
 siastical or military demands, is a practice opposed to the 
 faithful upholding of our Testimony against the payment 
 of such claims." f 
 
 The writer has personal knowledge of many transactions 
 of this character ; and he particularly calls to mind the 
 case of an Alderney cow belonging to a wealthy Quaker in 
 
 , which was offered up every year as a very temporary 
 
 sacrifice to the cause of Truth. The poor quadruped was led 
 off the premises as a meek " testimony to ancient princi- 
 ples," but always returned after one night's absence from 
 its wonted pastures, in triumphant "testimony" to man's 
 affection for a dumb and useful animal. The compromiser 
 was the leading Friend of the Society in the town alluded 
 to, and, therefore, " Disownment" was not thought neces- 
 sary or desirable. Bat it is acknowledged by Quakers 
 themselves, that this question of compromise has been a 
 very fertile cause of dismemberment. J How little notion 
 
 * Rules of Discipline, p. 265. 
 
 t Supplement to Rules of Discipline, with " Advices," p. 402. 
 
 % It would appear from the following that the tithe-collectors 
 connive at these compromises : " In my English Quaker experience 
 I have told how the 'Testimony' is sometimes managed there. The 
 Irish Friends are quite as clever in a different way. Thus, a sack 
 of wheat was once placed in a very conspicuous place in a barn, 
 when it was known the Tithe-collectors were coming. The owner 
 stood by and said to them. ' Look at that sack of wheat ; I would 
 not for £5. 7s. 6d. (the sum demanded) lose that.' The men imme- 
 diately lifted it up on the car they had brought with them, and 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 197 
 
 have these rigid disciplinarians who drive the sheep from 
 the fold with so much indifference, of the benignant 
 features of the great Christian scheme : how small is their 
 perception of (what Mrs. Fry beautifully called) " the 
 unutterable largeness of the real foundation " ! 
 
 5. That it is not lawful for Christians to swear at all 
 under the Gospel, not only not vainly, nor in their common 
 discourse, which was also forbidden under the Mosaical law, 
 but even not in judgment before the Magistrate. 
 
 There can be no doubt, I suppose, that in a perfect state 
 of Christian Society, not only would there be no vain 
 swearing, but there would be no civil oaths required for 
 the protection of truth and justice, which all men would 
 be equally solicitous to revere and shelter. And if the 
 perfection of modern Society is to be gauged by our 
 freedom from either the vain or the civil swearing, it is to 
 be feared that we are in a very lamentable and unprogres- 
 
 drove off, a little beyond the end of the avenue : they then turned 
 again. The Quaker had not moved from the spot he stood in. They 
 said, ' Sir, will you buy a fine sack of wheat from us V ' What is 
 the price ? let me look at it.' He opened the sack, rubbed the 
 grain in his hand and said it was very prime. ' Come, Sir, be quick. 
 Will you buy it for £5. Is. 6dV 'Yes,' he replied, 'I will,' and drew 
 the amount out of his pocket. The sack was restored to its proper 
 place. The Collectors received an extra shilling, with which to 
 drink the Friend's health, and very likely to laugh heartily at that 
 curious anomaly a Quaker's conscience. A gentleman who has now 
 left the Friends, and joined the Church of England and Ireland, told 
 me that when he was a Quaker his plan of evading the payments 
 and supporting the Testimony, was to leave, as if by chance, 
 cartridges of half-pence rolled up in paper, to a larger amount 
 than the sum demanded, in a conspicuous place. The Collectors 
 would only take the right sum, and the Testimony was upheld most 
 satisfactorily." — Story of my Life, &c, pp. 36*9, 370. 
 
198 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 sive condition. "We have only to deal with the question 
 of civil oaths : and it must be allowed at once, that many 
 of our charters and venerable institutions are fettered and 
 manacled by the most unnecessary restrictions of this 
 character. Men are called upon to swear in the most 
 solemn manner, upon occasions when it would be mani- 
 festly to the swearer's own disadvantage to do that which 
 he calls Heaven to witness he will not do. And again, 
 men are called upon to make solemn oaths, in compliance 
 with an ancient statute, either that they will not adopt a 
 custom which has long been obsolete, or that they will not 
 do some particular trivial act which the conventionalisms 
 of our modern social state immediately force them to 
 do.* Upon these very absurd and very unwarrantable 
 abuses, Quakers have founded their repudiation of all 
 juratory forms. And it is curious to note that upon abuses 
 of various gifts, and endowments, and privileges, has the 
 Society of Friends built all its objections to the proper 
 and legitimate use of the same — these objections being 
 supported (as the majority of Christians opine), either by 
 forced interpretations of Scripture, or by a very unwarrant- 
 able misapplication of Holy writ. 
 
 * Mr. Buckle has touched upon this subject very ably, in his 
 History of Civilization in England. 
 
 " In England, even the boy at College is forced to swear about 
 matters which he cannot understand, and which far riper minds are 
 unable to master. If he afterwards goes into Parliament he must 
 aerain swear about his religion ; and at nearly every stage of political 
 life, he must take fresh oaths ; the solemnity of which is often 
 strangely contrasted with the trivial functions to which they are 
 the prelude. A solemn adjuration of the Deity being thus made at 
 every turn, it has happened, as might have been expected, that oaths, 
 enjoined as a matter of course, have at length degenerated into a 
 matter of form."— p. 259. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 190 
 
 What we have really to enquire is this : Does Truth 
 derive absolute support from the civil administration of 
 oaths? and were oaths recognised institutions of both the 
 Jewish and Christian Dispensations ? Upon both points, 
 of course, there is a difference of opinion. 
 
 The sagacious Barclay thinks to dispose of the subject 
 by saying that " Truth was before oaths." But it may be 
 observed that fingers were before forks: and no one will 
 deny that the former are very materially protected by the 
 latter. In the same way a large proportion of Christians, 
 who are quite as anxious for the preservation of Truth 
 as the Society of Friends, believe that Truth derives very 
 great protection from the administration of Oaths. For the 
 purposes of this protection, the constitution of the country 
 requires (under certain exceptions) that every person giving 
 evidence in a court of law, or before a magistrate, shall 
 call Heaven to witness that he will speak veraciously. 
 The effect of this upon uneducated minds is very solemn 
 and very wholesome, and is a moral shield to Truth. 
 If we were all perfect, or all equally educated, and im- 
 pressed with the importance of Truth, this shield would 
 not be required. We have to deal, however, with the 
 world as it is, and not as it might be. When it is as it 
 might be, we shall have attained that perfection of Truth, 
 which will furnish an answer to Pilate's question, and 
 solve for ever the " riddle of history." 
 
 The influence produced upon uneducated minds, un- 
 familiar with courts of law and justice, by the solemn 
 administration of an oath, is very analogous to that 
 effected by strains of solemn music, and by the sombre 
 beauties of a gothic • pile, upon the religious aspirations 
 of the soul. Few minds are really insensible to acces- 
 sories of this kind, although there are some frigid 
 natures (not, I think, to be envied) which repudiate every 
 
200 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 assistance not strictly of a centric character. These 
 latter profess, and openly avow, that it is the easiest 
 thing in the world to worship and to realize the Almighty, 
 though they admit that " God is a Spirit," and that they 
 themselves are men. But look into the daily records of 
 their daily struggles, and see what a terrible mess even 
 the best of these men make of " Religious Feeling." 
 
 In the year 1696, an Act was passed which enabled 
 Quakers to make a solemn affirmation, when called upon 
 to give evidence; and other immunities and privileges 
 were ceded to them by the same statute. Considering their 
 own early intolerance, they have enjoyed, since the first 
 few years of fiery persecution, particular freedom from 
 civil and religious restrictions. Their conscientious scruples 
 have been entirely respected ; yet at the same time those 
 scruples have been associated, in the general mind of tbe 
 community, with a vivid sense of Quaker obstinacy. 
 
 Assuming it to be clear to general apprehension, that 
 Truth may derive real protection from some kind of 
 juratory form ; and seeing that the Scriptural evidence 
 admits of two interpretations, it is not unreasonable to 
 believe that to be the most legitimate construction of 
 the Divine precepts, which lends sanction to the law- 
 fulness of oaths. Scripture admits of this adaptation 
 to time, to circumstance, to social requirements, and 
 national idiosyncrasies. Now Biblical critics (and it must 
 be borne in mind that they were equally obnoxious, with 
 Friends, to the influence of the Holy Spirit at the time 
 they made their criticisms) are of opinion, that the pas- 
 sage in St. Matthew — " Swear not at all," &c, delivered 
 by our Saviour Himself, was merely intended as a reproof 
 to the Jews, for their constant invocation of the Deity 
 upon slight occasions. " Although the command seems 
 general and absolute, we must nevertheless understand it 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 201 
 
 with some restriction."* " It is plain/' says another 
 critic,f "that if the prohibition 'swear not at all 1 were 
 understood absolutely, the good of societj' - would be much 
 affected, as, in important matters, there would be wanting 
 the strongest human assurance, and the best human testi- 
 mony, which derive their greatest force from a solemn 
 appeal to God ; and therefore our Lord restrains his 
 command to ordinary discourse, % and opposes it to the 
 unnecessary and ensnaring oaths and vows, then so fre- 
 quent among the Jews." And Bishop Mann says: " Your 
 common discourse must be free from oaths of any kind, 
 for oaths are only to be used when they are required by 
 lawful authority. Of the passage in St. James — ' But 
 above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by 
 heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath/ 
 &c. (Ch. v. 12) a noted Biblical critic§ observes: 'And 
 let me particularly warn you that no examples, no pro- 
 vocations whatever, draw you into the vice of common 
 swearing, and invoking the name of God on light and 
 needless occasions.' And Dr. Jortin remarks on the 
 same passage : ' In later times some sects of Christians 
 have totally condemned all oaths as unlawful. But in this 
 they have carried their scruples too far. And this is one 
 of the inconveniences which will always arise, when reli- 
 gious but injudicious persons lay hold on single texts of 
 Scripture, and undertake to interpret them, without com- 
 paring them with other passages, and calling in the light 
 of reason and natural sense to their aid. That oaths are 
 
 * Beausobre's Notes on the New Testament. (From Mant). 
 t Archbishop Ncwcome. 
 
 t " But let your communication be, Yea, yea ; Nay, nay ; for 
 whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." — St. Matt. v. 37. 
 § Canon Pyle. 
 
A FALLEN' FAITH. 
 
 lawful in matters of importance appears from the practice 
 of our Lord Himself, who, being adjured by the high 
 priest in the name of God, answered to the adjurations ; 
 and from the example of St. Paul, who several times in 
 his Epistles calls God to witness upon solemn occasions. 
 In the Old Testament, and in the law, oaths are not only 
 permitted but enjoined ; and consequently could not be 
 unlawful in themselves, nor immoral in their own nature. 
 God Himself is frequently introduced swearing by Him- 
 self, by His truth, and by His own life. Hence it is 
 extremely plain to all who are not perverse and conten- 
 tious, that our Saviour's prohibition hath nothing to do 
 with oaths taken upon proper occasions before the magis- 
 trate, but with oaths which are voluntary and unnecessary. 
 ' Swear not at all/ that is, ' swear not in common conver- 
 sation.' " 
 
 Archbishop Seeker sums up some admirable remarks on 
 this passage from St. James, by saying: "We have no 
 manner of reason therefore to think that the Apostle 
 disapproved swearing before a magistrate, to which his 
 prohibition of swearing by heaven or by earth cannot 
 possibly relate ; or even swearing on any other solemn 
 and needful occasion."* 
 
 Coupling these theological views with the light of rea- 
 son, with our own moral perceptions, and with a very 
 extended experience, derived from daily observation, the 
 great majority of Christians will not believe that oaths are 
 not both lawful and salutary, and that Quakers have not 
 
 * A reference to the following passages will show that oaths 
 were customary and lawful under the Old and New Dispensations : 
 Exod. xxii. 2 ; Ps. ex. 4 ; Rom. ix. 1 ; 2 Cor. i. 23 ; xi. 31 ; Gal. 
 i. 20 ; Heb. vi. 16 ; Rev. x. 6. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 203 
 
 upon this point also hastened their decadence, by their 
 continued and pertinacious obstructiveness.* 
 
 6. That it is not lawful for Christians to resist Evil, 
 or to War or Fight in any case. 
 
 Alluding to the Quaker principles of non-resistance, an 
 author has quaintly observed : — As for those who, by 
 taking from mankind all right of self-preservation, would 
 have them still live in the world as naked as they came 
 into it, I shall not wish them any hurt ; but if I would, I 
 could scarce wish them a greater than that they might 
 feel the full effect and influence of their own opinion.-)-" 
 
 Setting on one side Fox's own views upon the lawful- 
 ness of war, which greatly varied within a few years, the 
 Society of Friends has steadily and consistently advocated 
 the principles of Peace.J But it is very singular that the 
 
 * It is worthy of note that adjurations occur occasionally in 
 Quaker writings ; and they have a much more solemn effect than 
 that confidence in self- inspiration which leads to such expressions 
 as " The word of the Lord to you," &c, or " the mouth of the Lord 
 hath spoken it," &c, or " by the Eternal power it is owned," &c. 
 William Peun several times writes : " God is my record," " God is 
 my record this day," &c, which is the most perfect form of a Chris- 
 tian oath, synonymous with our " So help me God." Fox also 
 says : " In the presence of the Lord God I declare, as God is my 
 witness," &c. 
 
 ■f Soutli's Works, vol. vii., p. 79. 
 
 X That there were Quakers in abundance in Cromwell's army we 
 have evidence from Fox's own writings, for he makes complaint 
 that they were turned out because of their pertinacious adherence 
 to " Thee and Thou," and for refusing to salute their officers. " Oh, 
 Oliver!" he writes to the Protector in 1657, "thou shouldst not 
 have stood trifling about small things. Do not stand cumbering 
 
204 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 decline of Quakerism, and the gradual perfecting of the 
 refinements of barbarism (to speak paradoxically), for the 
 wholesale annihilation of the species, should have been 
 coeval. And if it be true that improvement in education 
 among Friends has taught them the impracticability of their 
 own theories, and thereby proved a fruitful source of dis- 
 memberment, the fact would rather seem to bear out Mr. 
 Buckle's views — that the decrease of war amongst man- 
 kind will be in the exact ratio of their civilization, without 
 any reference to their religion. And, perhaps, if an angel 
 could have come down from heaven, and walked into our 
 churches and chapels, on the Fast-day with which we 
 inaugurated our Russian campaign in 1854, and listened 
 to the opinions expressed by God's ambassadors upon that 
 occasion, he would have handed in at least a negative 
 testimony to the soundness of our modern philosopher's 
 opinion.* 
 
 thyself about dirty priests ;" and then he adds — " If thou hadst fol- 
 lowed my counsels the Hollanders had been thy subjects ; Germany 
 had given up to thy will ; and the Spaniard had quivered like a dry 
 leaf ; the King of France should have bowed under thee his neck ; 
 the Pope should have withered as in the winter : thou should'st 
 have crumbled nations to dust ; therefore let thy soldiers go forth 
 with a free and -willing heart, that thou mayst rock nations as a 
 cradle. For a mighty work hath the Lord to do in other nations, 
 and their quakings and shakings are but entering. So this is the word 
 of the Lord God to thee, as a charge to thee from the Lord God," 
 &c. — Snake in the Grass, pp. 238, 239. Subsequently Fox wrote : 
 " I who am of the world called George Fox do deny the carrying 
 or drawing of any carnal sword against thee, Oliver Cromwell, or 
 
 any man ' My kingdom is not of this world,' therefore 
 
 < I do not fight.' " 
 
 * Some of the clergy, who saw " the hand of God in India" during 
 the late mutiny, though they never thought of seeing it when every- 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 205 
 
 It is not proposed to touch upon the subject of aggressive 
 warfare, which nothing can justify; but I shall briefly 
 allude to that system of defensive warfare, which originates 
 in a moral sense implanted in every man, of the necessity 
 and expediency of self-preservation. 
 
 Mr. Hallam observes : — " The right of war — which we 
 must here understand in the largest sense — the employ- 
 ment of force to resist force, though by private men, 
 resides in all mankind. Solon, Grotius says, taught us 
 that those Commonwealths would be happy wherein each 
 man thought the injuries of others were like his own. 
 The mere sociability of human nature ought to suggest 
 this to us. And, though Grotius does not proceed with 
 this subject, he would not have doubted that we have a 
 right to protect the lives and goods of others against 
 lawless violence, without the least reference to positive 
 law or the command of a magistrate. If this has been 
 preposterously doubted, or affected to be doubted, in 
 England, of late years, it has been less owing to the 
 pedantry which demands an express written law upon 
 the most pressing emergency, than to lukewarmness, at 
 the best, in the public cause of order and justice. The 
 expediency of vindicating these by the slaughter of the 
 aggressors must depend on the peculiar circumstances; 
 
 thing progressed satisfactorily, claim a peculiar familiarity with the 
 desigus of Providence upon all occasions of national disaster. And 
 they are well supported by some of the editors of newspapers. A 
 writer in the New York Herald, last June, expresses very compre- 
 hensive views concerning the chances of a rupture between England 
 and the United States. " A naval war," he says, " is not the most 
 improbable result ; and every reflecting man must see that it is far 
 from being a very undesirable thing to this country. It may be that 
 it is one of the inscrutable designs of Providence for working out the 
 true and manifest destiny of this Great Republic." 
 
206 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 but the right is paramount to any positive laws, even if, 
 which with us is not the case, it were difficult to be 
 proved from them."* 
 
 The question which really concerns us, as living in a 
 mixed community of nations, is this : Are the order,, and 
 regularity, and social harmony of society most likely to 
 be maintained by a tame submission to every insult to 
 which " pacific principles" may expose them ; or by a 
 steady resistance, amounting, if necessary, to physical 
 force, which shall so awe the offenders as to prevent a 
 recurrence of encroachment and injury? No one for a 
 moment doubts the beauty of that happy time which shall 
 witness the leopard lying down with the kid, and a little 
 child leading them : no one who has any acquaintance 
 with morality, much less Christianity, disputes that quar- 
 relling and fighting are great curses ; that what they 
 frequently eventuate in are greater curses still; and that 
 
 " The drying up a single tear has more 
 Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore." 
 
 But it will be true wisdom to remember that the oppor- 
 tunity to the individual, of drying up tears, and of being 
 engaged in various offices of charity, will only arise to him 
 by the protection which he personally derives from the 
 totality of that social state of which he is a part. How 
 are its members to achieve individual good if they are 
 indifferent as to the preservation of their collective in- 
 tegrity? To attempt to do away with the immediate 
 evils of war, absolutely and entirely, without reference to 
 greater evils which would subsequently result, is to indi- 
 cate great ignorance of human nature, an unjustifiable 
 
 * Introduction to the Literature of Europe, by Henry Hallam, 
 vol. iii., pp. 187-8, fifth edit. London, 1855. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 207 
 
 repudiation of social responsibility, and an entire miscon- 
 ception of relative claims and duties, as members of a 
 civilized community. 
 
 Now supposing a barbarous nation, or even a civilized 
 nation, under the sway of an ambitious and despotic ruler, 
 were to visit this island of ours, and endeavour by force of 
 arms to overturn its institutions, to lay waste its fields, to 
 annihilate the instruments of its material prosperity, and 
 to lead its people into captivity — would all that we hold 
 dear (including our Religious Faith) be most likely to be 
 preserved to us by a stupid submission to the aggressor's 
 yoke — by acting up, in fact, to the principle of not allowing 
 one cheek to be smitten without giving up the other to a 
 similar indignity — or by the vigorous effort of a standing 
 army, or of an enthusiastic and patriotic people, to expel 
 the invader from our shores ? To talk of treaties and arbi- 
 trations when the enemy is at your gates — when you are all 
 but trampled on — is to perpetrate a joke only to be equalled 
 by that of Mr. Punch, who advises, that the first thing 
 to do when your house is on fire, is to keep yourself cool ; 
 or by that of a modern horse-tamer, who tells you that the 
 way to tame a vicious brute, who bites and kicks at every- 
 body, is to go quietly up and pat him on the neck. Think 
 of Joseph Sturge parleying with a Turco or a Zouave 
 about " peace principles," and the " spirit of the Gospel ! " 
 Observe how difficult it is to bring two litigants to arbitra- 
 tion, even in a court of law, where the wisdom of the 
 judge, the admonitions of counsel, and various concurring 
 circumstances, are all favorable to an issue of compromise 
 and peace. There can be no treaties between nations sud- 
 denly brought into contact, and inflamed by the worst 
 passions, engendered on the one side by the desire td 
 subjugate and plunder, and on the other by indignation 
 
208 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 at the daring of the aggressor.* What is to be done? 
 You must be expeditious ; you have no time to lose. 
 Why, the barbarian, or the more civilized hero, with his 
 ' a bas les Anglais,' will cut your throat while you are 
 attempting to ply him with passages from Scripture, 
 on the beauties of brotherly love and peace. Gun- 
 powder and common sense are true conservatives of 
 Religion. Alas for human nature ! the wisdom which 
 is from above — the highest attainment of Christian am- 
 bition — must come to us shrouded in worldly wisdom, and 
 made available to us through the medium of political con- 
 siderations. And as society progresses, and civilization 
 advances, and morality increases, we shall step upon that 
 higher platform — the promised land of him only who 
 recognizes every duty of religion, and every collateral 
 assistance which can help to mould that religion into all 
 that is divine and beautiful. 
 
 Thus it is that, in our present imperfect state, though 
 
 * Unhappily, those who know human nature better than Quakers 
 are forced, from experience, to look upon the following incident as a 
 piece of rare good fortune. Friends are fond of alluding to this 
 Delawar picture as the true precedent : " Once indeed it was 
 rumoured that on the Brandywine 500 Indians were assembled to 
 concert a massacre. Immediately Caleb Pusey, with five Friends, 
 hastened to the scene of anticipated danger. The sachem repelled 
 the calumnious report with indignation, and the little griefs of the 
 tribe were canvassed and assuaged. ' The Great God who made all 
 mankind extends His love to Indians and English. The rain and 
 the dews fall alike on the ground of both ; the sun shines on us 
 equally, and we ought all to love one another.' Such was the diplo- 
 macy of the Quaker envoy. The king of the Delawars answered : 
 ' What you say is true. Go home and harvest the corn God has 
 given you. We intend you no harm.' " — Bancroft's History of the 
 tJnitad States, vol. ii. p. 646. 
 
 Alas ! in modern times a Christian Emperor was not to be con- 
 vinced or reasoned with after this sort. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 209 
 
 still improving with the larger development of secular and 
 religious instruction everywhere recognized, the cause of 
 general advancement, and Christian excellence, may be 
 expected to issue in the fulfilment of the splendid vision — 
 " neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall 
 sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree ; and 
 none shall make them afraid : for the mouth of the Lord of 
 hosts hath spoken it." And that this vision is more likely 
 to be realized by that nation which remembers the Italian 
 proverb, that " one sword keeps another in its scabbard j" 
 or the Gallic one, that " He who bears the sword bears 
 peace than by that which misinterprets the precept — 
 " him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy 
 coat also." * 
 
 It is this wisdom which recognizes the fact of human 
 imperfections, varying with race and country, with soil and 
 climate, with traditions and national customs, and discerns 
 the relative bearing of each obstructive force, which con- 
 stitutes the real efficiency of the Christian Missionary. 
 
 * " Ami the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what 
 shall we do ? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, 
 neither accuse any falsely ; and be content with your wages." St. 
 Luke iii. 14. It is stated that do violence to no man, means, do not 
 exceed the legitimate bounds of your professional duty, by exercising 
 it upon unnecessary occasions. Bishop Home commenting on the 
 above passage says : " St. John, here regulating the conduct of 
 military persons, shows that no condition is excluded from salvation. 
 The business of war is not of itself unlawful, since there have been 
 soldiers who have not only been good Christians, but even great 
 saints and generous martyrs. If all war had been contrary to the 
 Gospel, St. John would not have allowed those who presented 
 themselves before him to continue in that state. However, it is a 
 state certainly full of difficulties and temptations." 
 
 V 
 
210 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 And it is this gift, and a special aptitude for elaborating it 
 into general usefulness, which has given to Dr. Livingstone 
 a name which will not die. He does not say, with the 
 Quaker, every man hath the witness of the Spirit in 
 himself ; that this Spirit teaches him, as it were, by in- 
 ward breathings, made immediately and directly upon the 
 heart, without the intervention of outward circumstances. 
 But he says — I can spread Christianity, perhaps, in 
 Africa (immense though the difficulty be) if I can show 
 these poor creatures the material as well as immaterial ad- 
 vantages of the Faith which I bring with me. I must open 
 up Commerce, which is as divine an institution as that for 
 which it paves the way. I must show that the treasures 
 with which nature has surrounded them are to be utilized 
 by freedom of communication with ourselves ; that this 
 freedom of communication will arise from the construction 
 of roads, and canals, and that general economy of labour 
 which characterizes the land that sent me hither. We 
 do not, however, communicate freely with those who do 
 not try to assimilate themselves to our social and religious 
 codes, because those codes are the necessary accompani- 
 ment and sequence of the general improvement which I 
 inculcate. This life will be benefited by Christianity as 
 well as the next. I do not begin by telling them they 
 are polygamists, and therefore must first put away all 
 their wives but one, as the condition of everlasting safety ; 
 though I know a Church in my own country which uses 
 rather strong language about an "Athanasian Creed," and 
 deals out indubitable damnation to those who receive it 
 not. But I tell them that their social condition will im- 
 prove by the diminution, in their limited domestic spheres, 
 of female tongues, and female rivalry ; that they will have 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 211 
 
 more home-peace in the possession of one loving wife, than 
 in that of ten wrangling jades. And hereafter I may 
 say, that this union to only one, symholizes the divine 
 union between the Christ which I preach, and the Church 
 of the living God which He hath bequeathed to us. And 
 thus gradually I shall map out the heathen country where 
 God was not known, into a land ready for the less com- 
 plicated and less material achievements of those who will 
 come after me. This is the sort of labour which everyone 
 recognizes to be true, because based upon an enduring 
 foundation. It begins at the beginning. It is prepara- 
 tory, and progressive ; and, as such, it is worth all the 
 rhapsodical details of what are named individual conver- 
 sions, furnished by well-meaning but ignorant Missionaries, 
 for the home perusal of " serious " housemaids, and the 
 sentimental disciples of a " frothy pietism." 
 
 And so — to recur to the more immediate subject of 
 War — civilization and education increase our means of 
 adjusting national as well as personal disputes ; enable 
 us to weigh conflicting evidence ; give us larger views 
 of social responsibilities and moral obligations; impress 
 us with the reciprocity of human action and interest ; 
 bring us into closer contact and more intimate rela- 
 tionship with races at extreme ends of the globe, and 
 point out to all the advantages of commercial enterprise, 
 and social intercommunication. Is not this to pave the 
 way for that Gospel which says " Blessed are the peace- 
 makers " ? Is not this to do our part towards that 
 evangelization which is to fill the Earth with " the know- 
 ledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea " ? Is it 
 not the way to entirely efface from among us that greatest 
 curse by which mankind has ever been afflicted — religious 
 persecutions, the " agents of which have unhappily been 
 
212 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 chiefly men of the purest intentions, of the most admirable 
 and unsullied morals " ?* 
 
 These considerations, therefore, lead us to believe that 
 the position of the Society of Friends in respect of war, is 
 thoroughly untenable, because it ignores the manifold 
 imperfections of our social state, and, through that mis- 
 taken course, is unable to adopt the legitimate means by 
 which man individually and collectively will realize the 
 Saviour's affirmation, that " Blessed are the peacemakers 
 for they shall inherit the earth."f 
 
 * Mr. Buckle says, in his History of Civilization in England, that 
 the decline of the warlike spirit among us is chiefly "owing to the 
 increase of the intellectual classes, to whom the military classes are 
 necessarily antagonistic :" and that this general movement has been 
 accelerated by " three vast though subsidiary causes — the invention 
 of gunpowder, the discoveries of political economy, and the discovery 
 of improved means of Locomotion." Vide Chap. IV. The whole 
 subject is worthy of attentive consideration. It appears to me that 
 Mr. Buckle's views have received a large measure of support from 
 the recent campaign in Italy. What has terminated this war so 
 rapidly, and so unexpectedly ? Has it been an increased perception 
 of the truth of Christianity ? Nothing of the kind. The "War has 
 been crushed by the very refinement of its barbarities, which horri- 
 fied the two chief movers in it as well as the entire civilized world. 
 The railroad which brought up the French troops at Magenta 
 exercised a tremendous influence upon the duration of the Campaign. 
 All the combining circumstances of civilization preclude the possi- 
 bility of any lengthened war again desolating Europe. 
 
 t There is something very striking and instructive, in the manner 
 in which two of our very ablest and most popular legislators fell in 
 public estimation, by the views which they proclaimed, in tones of 
 splendid eloquence and real Christian earnestness, with respect to the 
 Crimean war. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright have not yet recovered 
 from that rapid and (as it appears to me) unmerited declension. 
 
 There are several minor points included under this heading which 
 it is not necessary to dilate upon — such as the rejection of our 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 213 
 
 VI. A general recognition on the part of best Friends, 
 of the necessity of a higher Educational Standard, adapted 
 to the requirements and the progressive Spirit of the Age 
 — this recognition involving, as a matter of course, a repu- 
 diation of their " ancient principles," a fraternization witli 
 the World, and a consequent separation from Themselves. 
 
 If it be true that the world has never done justice to 
 Quakerism, it is equally true (as has been recently observed) 
 that Quakerism has never done justice to the world. The 
 views of the early Quakers were — this life is a very wretched 
 affair ; every thing is thoroughly bad and wicked ; every 
 man who differs from us must be wrong; the best plan is 
 to have nothing to do with the world in the way of plea- 
 sure or intellectual improvement ; hurl vengeance against 
 all opposers ; the Spirit will testify that you are thereby 
 doing God service, and securing for yourself the joys of 
 heaven. Now I unhesitatingly make this statement ; and 
 if any one doubts its truth, I propose to him a not very 
 pleasing task — that of dipping into Fox's Journal, or into 
 the early works of William Penn, or the works of Edward 
 Burroughs, aud other volumes of the " ancient " literature 
 of the Society of Friends. He will there find that human 
 learning was held in utter contempt, and that everything 
 was deemed subordinate to the paramount importance of the 
 ''witness of the Spirit."* Nor is this to be wondered at when 
 
 " heathen " nomenclature of our months and days ; funeral rites, 
 &c. They are all antagonistic to the usual customs to the world, 
 and give an additional obstructive colouring to the proceedings of 
 the Society of Friends. 
 
 * Mr. Clarkson says that the real depreciation of human learning 
 did not commence, Fox being excepted, until the second generation 
 of Quakerism. I find, however, that the writings of the first period 
 are for the more part characterized by bombastic ignorance. It is 
 
214 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 we consider the fanatical ignorance of Fox himself, and of 
 the great majority of his immediate disciples. Even the 
 learned and verbose Barclay was not exempt from the 
 popular delusion upon this subject. Fox was for " famishing 
 people from words " (as he expresses it), because all " lan- 
 guages are to him but dust who was before languages 
 were." The Apologist's definition of true learning is unicme, 
 and worthy of transcription, as a real literary curiosity. 
 " Though then we make not human learning necessary, 
 yet we are far from excluding true learning ; to wit, that 
 learning which proceedeth from the inward teachings and 
 instructions of the Spirit, whereby the soul learneth the 
 secret ways of the Lord, becomes acquainted with many 
 inward travels and exercises of the mind ; and learneth by 
 a living experience how to overcome evil, and the temp- 
 tations of evil, by following the Lord and walking in his 
 light, and waiting daily for wisdom and knowledge, im- 
 mediately from the revelation thereof ; and so layeth up 
 these heavenly and Divine lessons in the good treasure of 
 the heart ; as honest Mary did the sayings which she 
 heard," &c, &c* Barclay illustrates this proposition by 
 a poor shoemaker, who could not read, refuting " a pro- 
 fessor of divinity's false assertion from Scripture." He 
 says in another place : "As for the other part of phi- 
 losophy, which is called moral, or ethicks, it is not so 
 necessary to Christians who have the rules of the Holy 
 Scriptures, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, by which they 
 can be much better instructed. "f 
 
 true that "William Perm was a man of erudition, and that both by 
 his literature and by his conduct (as I have previously intimated) 
 he redeemed in later, the wild extravagancies and enthusiasm of 
 his earlier, years. 
 
 * Barclay's Apology, pp. 307-8. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 312. William Penn learned wisdom (as I have pre- 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 215 
 
 The most striking feature of early Quakerism was its 
 rapid declension, after the excitement of the first fanatical 
 outburst had subsided. People became tired of (what Mr. 
 Leslie happily calls) " going a religion bunting," and of 
 ignoriug all the enjoyments, tbe educational improvements, 
 and the useful purposes, of life. It was natural to suppose 
 that in every young Quaker family there sbould be a 
 few youthful minds which, however trammelled by a 
 depressing creed, should break asunder their hereditary 
 bonds, for that expansiveness which is at once the cause 
 and the measure of aspiration. And this led to a more 
 general and polite educational system being introduced 
 into tbe Society, and so constituted a departure from tbe 
 first principles of " ancient Quakerism." This corporate 
 organization, therefore, was doomed under any circum- 
 stances. That which was the beau ideal of intellectual 
 stagnation would not attract in an age essentially progres- 
 sive ; and the endeavour to prevent stagnation by more 
 liberal mental training, was at once to remove the fetters, 
 show youthful minds their power, and make them sen- 
 sible of the advantages of freedom and flight. What 
 was intended to benefit the Society absolutely ruined it. 
 
 viously pointed out) after a few years of suffering ; and some of his 
 later writings contrast strangely with his earlier productions, and 
 are beautiful specimens of epigrammatic terseness. He had found 
 out that other things besides the Spirit were of immense importance. 
 " Virtue," he says, "is the true life-principle of society. All history 
 proves this ; but although immorality is the chief destroyer, a mis- 
 taken policy may be little inferior to it in mischief. .... The 
 truest test of faith is practice. He who acts well believes well. 
 Morality is debased when tested from above. Virtue may be neces- 
 sary to a state of grace, but grace is not indispensable to virtue. 
 It is a grand mistake to disparage morality, under pretence of 
 looking to higher things. In the world there is nothing higher 
 than goodness." — {From Penn's Collected Works.) 
 
216 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 " Vaulting ambition " did " o'erleap itself, and fall on 
 the other." And so it has come to pass, that during 
 the last half century Quakerism has produced, or, rather, 
 the age has produced, in spite of Quakerism, some of 
 the noblest characters. In the very effort to throw off 
 their chains, and emancipate themselves from the igno- 
 rance of their predecessors, Friends have unwittingly 
 borne testimony to the progressive influence of the times, 
 and against the frigid formality of a decrepid creed. And 
 these bright luminaries have been the more noticed because 
 of the source from whence they sprang, and because of their 
 still adherent peculiarities.* All the best Quakers, in 
 fact, have of necessity ignored the principles of ancient 
 Quakerism, in so far as they have associated them- 
 selves with others for the amelioration of the species 
 — retaining only, and that in a very limited degree, 
 their peculiarities in the matters of dress, and language, 
 and mode of worship. " The moment (as Mr. Maurice 
 observes) they began to do anything besides bearing indi- 
 vidual testimonies, the moment they attempted to perform 
 some general, social, organic acts on behalf of their fellow- 
 creatures, that moment they found it necessary to fraternize 
 with the members of other Societies." f Whilst a large pro- 
 
 * There is nothing uncharitable in saying that the well-known 
 Quaker peculiarities in dress, manner, and phraseology, proved the 
 chief source of their attraction on the Continent during the visits of 
 the English Friends, of whom Mrs. Fry and her brother formed a part. 
 The undoubted earnestness which they displayed, and the thorough 
 excellence of their lives, secured for them all respect and sympathy. 
 For the same reasons Mrs. Fry was privileged to say anything she 
 pleased, give friendly hints to Louis Philippe, and advise Prince 
 Albert to bring up his children properly. But this sort of imper- 
 tinence would not again be countenanced. 
 
 t The Kingdom of Christ, or Hints to a Quaker, by F. D. Maurice, 
 M.A. London, 1842, vol. i., p. 67. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 217 
 
 portion of strict disciplinarians remained still in bondage, 
 thundering their threats of " disownment" against those 
 who were only waiting the opportunity to disown them- 
 selves. These were the unprogressive and self-complacent 
 ones who so horrified Mrs. Fry, helped to drive her 
 children from the fold, and pierced the sensitive nature 
 of poor Joseph John Gurney with more than mortal agony. 
 We all know what the former has done ; and I have 
 already recorded some of her noblest sentiments. But, be 
 it observed, she did what she did, and earned for herself 
 an undying fame — not because she was a Quaker, for 
 she bore no testimony to anything but the shallowness of 
 "ancient principles," but — because she was a noble Chris- 
 tian philanthropist. She would have been a Wilberforce 
 or a Nightingale under a more refined discipleship, or a 
 Xavier under a more realistic creed. She was born to do 
 good. She would have loved and laboured (and her brother 
 likewise) ; she would have toiled, but not suffered, any- 
 where, No ! the suffering was the unquiet of the creed, 
 in a sensitive mind, and in a heart full of love and 
 sincerity. It was that awful doctrine of the " Spirit 5 ' 
 pushed to its extreme limits— that terrible system of 
 mental introversion — and leaving them without rest the 
 moment activity ceased, which made the misery of this 
 brother and sister.* The self-complacent are proof against 
 it, the offensive feature of their religious character arising 
 from a supposed superiority, and thereby from a fancied 
 security. But it is otherwise with the good; there we 
 
 * " Again, there are instances in which a mild meditative humour 
 perverted by some false system of belief, or excessive sensibilities, 
 that have chanced to be torn or outraged in the world, or much 
 physical timidity, combined with lofty sentiments, produce the effect 
 of introverting gloomy emotions upon the heart." — Fanaticism, by 
 Isaac Taylor, p. 71. 
 
218 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 have the torture — the tornado of religious feelings — where 
 all should be quietness and peace. Whilst Mrs. Fry was 
 labouring among the prisoners, and cleansing Newgate 
 from its abominable pollutions ; whilst J. J. Gurney was 
 employed in the literary pursuits which he so much loved ; 
 Allen was rapidly elucidating the difficulties of chemical 
 philosophy, and engaged in. the general prosecution of the 
 physical sciences. All the best Friends, in a word, were 
 impressed with the truth of Gurney's dictum — " We shall 
 never thrive upon ignorance."* Reynolds was actively 
 engaged at Bristol in organizing systematic visitation of 
 the poor. Hutchinson and others of the excellent were 
 progressively employed likewise. The horrors of the 
 slave-trade, and the revelations of prison discipline, were 
 drawing the earnest labourers from their hereditary 
 
 * Allen (who was the friend of Davy, of Babington, of Wilberforce 
 and Astley Cooper) prosecuted liis studies in the field of physical 
 science with so much earnestness, that his mother became afraid 
 that her son would lose sight of " the one thing needful." Her 
 letters to him are curious, as showing the unexpansiveness of an 
 earlier generation, which had scarcely learned that Eeligion was not 
 a complete insulation from the duties of life, and requiring undivided 
 attention. She writes to him during an illness, which she thought 
 would be favourable to the receipt of religious impressions, by 
 drawing his mind from science : " I believe it may be said of thee 
 as was said to Peter, ' Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may 
 sift thee as wheat ;' but I humbly hope that the same advocate will 
 plead for thee that 'thy faith fail not.'" On another occasion she 
 writes : — " Thou art too much absorbed in study, my beloved child, 
 for, however innocent it may be, yet, like the doves in the Temple, 
 it fills up a place in the temple of thy heart, which ought to be 
 otherwise occupied, and dedicated unto the Lord, in whose hands 
 thou wouldst become an instrument to promote the knowledge of 
 pure Christianity. Come, my beloved, if a right hand or a right 
 eye be called for, give it up." — Memoir of William Allen, F.R.S., by 
 James Sherman, p. 50. London, 1857. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 219 
 
 exclusiveness, to devote themselves to the common caxise 
 of general instruction and amelioration, with the good and 
 earnest of every creed. And their free intercommunion 
 ■with others, engaged in the same vineyard, led them to 
 perceive the truth of what William Penn said, in his later 
 years — that measuring conduct by creeds was often a 
 mischievous fallacy ; and to acknowledge the judgment of 
 Mrs. Fry, which led her to affirm, that " no study was 
 equal to that of mankind, and nothing so likely to enlarge 
 the mind as society, and the good and the cultivated of 
 every nation." This is a distinct repudiation of the prin- 
 ciples of "ancient Quakerism." "It ought to be our 
 never-ceasing object (said Coleridge) to make people 
 think, not feel." This was exactly what the unfettering 
 of Quakerism was tending to, though those who had been 
 slaves to the fundamental doctrine of " the universal and 
 saving Light" could not think of their First Love without 
 many sorrows at the little she had achieved, and at the 
 certainty of her dissolution; and could not emancipate 
 themselves — whatever they might do for the young — from 
 that self-anatomy of feeling, which constituted, in highest 
 and purest natures, the very madness of their misery. 
 
 And surely no one who knows anything of human 
 nature, who is at all familiar with mental science, and 
 with the history of mankind, will doubt that the progress 
 of civilization in modern times is owing to our increased 
 recognition of the handmaids to Religion, which are to be 
 found in augmenting knowledge, and in the cumulative 
 evidence of physical discoveries. For does not knowledge, 
 every step she takes, grapple with degradation, and raise 
 up a barrier against the encroachments of superstition?* 
 
 * " Reason gives us knowledge ; while faith only gives us belief, 
 which is a part of knowledge, and is, therefore, inferior to it. It is 
 
220 
 
 A FALLEX FAITH. 
 
 Must not he have higher views of the wonders of nature, 
 and of the great providential scheme of which we are 
 ourselves a part, who can see in both, that unvarying law 
 which is the keystone of perfect harmony and coapta- 
 tion, rather than that capricious interference of the Deity 
 which would necessitate a fresh act — a new miracle — for 
 all the details of Universal Government ? Must not his 
 religious sense be quickened into more confiding love, who 
 knows that God has given us such power of familiarizing 
 ourselves with His natural dealings, that we can tell, to a 
 year, and to a minute, an eclipse which shall happen to a 
 future generation; and who looks upon each objective 
 revelation of this kind as a culminating point of law and 
 order — rather than if, as of yore, every natural pheno- 
 menon of a not everyday occurrence was regarded as a 
 special indication of heavenly judgment I I have seen the 
 cackling and grinning hags in the kingdom of the Two 
 Sicilies, yelling at the frigid blood of their patron Saint, 
 because it would not vivify into new life with sufficient 
 speed to quiet their superstitious fears ; and I have thought 
 it a sight so degrading, as even to affect for a while 
 the stability of one's Faith. What can religion ever do 
 there ? "Where is the " Universal and Saving Light" of 
 the Quaker creed ? Everything is powerless in such a 
 country, unless you carry Religious Freedom in one hand, 
 and Intellectual Culture in the other. These are the 
 agents for the proper husbanding of that soil, in which 
 are to strike downward the roots, and grow upward the 
 branches, of that wonderful engraftment of the super- 
 natural which shall fructify into Everlasting Life. This 
 is the progressive spirit which is characteristic of the age, 
 
 by reason, and not by faith, that we must discriminate in religious 
 matters ; and it is by reason alone that we can distinguish truth 
 from falsehood."— Chillingworth. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 221 
 
 which repudiates alike the Fanaticism of the Brand, of 
 the Symbol, of the Banner, of Ignorance, of Intolera- 
 tion, and of spiritual self-sufficiency. The knowledge 
 of the verity, that religion, to he effective, must be 
 preceded by intellectual culture, has been gained by the 
 Society of Friends — has been gathered by the light of 
 their own history, and by the moral perceptions with 
 which God has gifted them, as largely as with the Light 
 of His Holy Spirit ; by the evidence furnished by their 
 own eyes of what has been done, and is being done, to 
 hasten that glorious kingdom which shall be fitted for the 
 Saviours second Advent. 
 
 VII. The exclusive character of the Society, and the 
 system of disowning members for breach of Discipline ; 
 and its non-Proselytism. 
 
 It has been the constant effort of the most earnest and 
 liberal-minded of the Society of Friends, during the last 
 fifty years, to obtain some relaxation of that rigid code, 
 which disowns members for breaches of social and religious 
 discipline. They have been so warmed into expansiveness, 
 by the age's progressive spirit, so impressed by the lifeless 
 formality of an unadvancing system, and so led to sympa- 
 thize with the natural desires of their youthful disciples 
 to emulate in all things the excellent of every Christian 
 sect, that they have exposed themselves, from within 
 their own body, to the ungenerous censures of bigotry 
 and intolerance. The number, too, of really exemplary 
 individuals, has not been small, in the Society of Friends, 
 in proportion to those who have been more solicitous 
 to preserve the distinctiveness of a creed than to give 
 freedom to the Gospel of Christ. Still, from some 
 cause or other, the concessions have not been made 
 in general Council ; and the discipline has not been 
 
222 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 relaxed, save in occasional instances, for the protection 
 of influential members.* 
 
 It is in respect of ' Marriage ' that the greatest number 
 of Disownments have occurred. It was natural, of course, 
 in a rapidly contracting field of choice, that young Quakers 
 of both sexes, taught by the progressiveness of the period 
 to mix more in the world, and to imbibe a more compre- 
 hensive wisdom, should discover opportunities for forming 
 matrimonial ties, out of the pale of their own eclecticism. 
 Many were too glad to embrace this graceful way of being 
 " dealt with," in preference to a more painful method, 
 upon doctrinal grounds, of repudiating the continued 
 shelter of the creed which had nurtured them. It was 
 something to marry a pretty girl out of a drab bonnet. 
 It was more to marry her Religion also. The great episode 
 of life became invested with a double interest. The Rules 
 of Discipline are very plain and unmistakeable upon this 
 social question, and display so much intolerance as to have 
 received the undisguised disapproval of Mrs. Fry.f The 
 following entry occurs in her Journal: " 1st mo. 2nd, 1832 
 
 * " It is expedient to hush up complaints when they affect per- 
 sons eminent in the Ministry." — Spirit of the Hat, by William Penn. 
 London, 1673. 
 
 t " In order to put a stop to an undue liberty in contracting mar- 
 riages with such as are not of our Society, it is advised that all 
 parents and guardians of children do take especial care, as much as 
 in them lies, to prevent their children from running into such mar- 
 riages ; and that the Friends of each particular meeting, as also of 
 the monthly meeting to which such persons belong, do, in the wisdom 
 and power of truth, use their endeavours to put a stop to the said 
 evil, by admonishing such as may attempt to marry as aforesaid ; 
 but if they refuse to take counsel, or to go on to marry as aforesaid, 
 that then such persons be dealt with according to the good order of 
 truth, and judgment fixed upon all who take such an undue liberty." 
 1719—1833. — Rules of Discipline, p. 1)9. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 2-13 
 
 — We had the subject of marriage much before us this last 
 year : it has brought us to some test of our feelings and 
 principles respecting it. That it is highly desirable and 
 important to have young persons settle in marriage, par- 
 ticularly young men, I cannot doubt ; and that it is one of 
 the most likely means of their preservation, religiously, 
 morally, and temporally. Moreover, it is highly desirable 
 to settle with one of the same religious views, habits, and 
 education as themselves ; more particularly for those who 
 have been brought up as Friends, because their mode of 
 education is peculiar : but if any young persons, upon 
 arriving at an age of discretion, do not feel themselves 
 really attached to our peculiar views and habits, then I 
 think their parents have no right to use undue influence 
 with them, as to the connexions they may incline to form ; 
 provided they be with persons of religious lives and con- 
 versation. I am of opinion that parents are apt to exercise 
 too much authority upon the subject of marriage, and 
 that there would be more really happy unions if young 
 persons were left more to their own feelings and discre- 
 tion. Marriage is too much treated like a business 
 concern, and love, that essential ingredient, too little 
 respected in it. I disapprove the Rule of our Society 
 that disowns persons for allowing a child to marry one 
 not a Friend — it is a most undue and unchristian restraint, 
 as fur as I can judge it."* 
 
 Joseph John Gurney was equally alive to the dangers 
 from this very source, and he frequently alludes to them ; 
 rather as a matter of fear, however, than regret. There are 
 many breaches of discipline for which the extreme measure 
 of " disownment" is resorted to, if admonition, and advice, 
 and warning, are not found sufficiently effective. Such 
 are : proceeding against a fellow member at law, neglecting 
 
 * Memoir of Life of Elizabeth Fry, vol. ii., pp. 139, 140. 
 
224 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 meetings for worship, receiving or paying tithes, defamation 
 of character, defrauding the revenue, illegal dealings in 
 the public funds, the making or selling instruments of war, 
 and being concerned in privateers or armed vessels, un- 
 soundness of doctrine, &c, &c. And it has been affirmed 
 (I know not with what truth) that in the case of a notorious 
 public offender, who has exposed himself to the justice of 
 the penal laws of his country, the Society is so ashamed of 
 the delinquent, and so jealous of its own reputation, as to 
 disown him by legislation of a retrospective character — 
 that is by an " act of dealing " which shall make the date 
 of his expulsion prior to the public disgrace from which he 
 is now suffering. Whether this be a true charge or not, I 
 am quite sure that the best and most excellent of Quakers 
 would never lend themselves to such a specious mode of 
 retaining an acquired reputation for collective purity. 
 
 It is through the medium of disownment, however, by 
 reason of " extra-mural " marriages, and the sanction of 
 such ties by parents and guardians, that the numerical 
 force of the Society has been most largely diminished. 
 It is true that delinquents, by acknowledging their errors, 
 may receive condonation and read mission. But who that 
 has ever left the fold has come back to it ? * 
 
 And the general feeling of the community with respect 
 to disownment, is that it indicates a spiritual pride and an 
 assumed superiority, somewhat analogous to the presump- 
 tuous daring of more Catholic pretensions. This regulation 
 of their discipline is surely at variance with the humility to 
 which Quakers lay claim, and to the entire spirit of the 
 Gospel dispensation. He who thrice denied his Lord was 
 
 * The annual average of Marriages in England and Wales is as 
 1 to 122 of the general population. In the Society of Friends it as 
 1 to 226. The annual number of " Disownments," by reason of 
 members marrying out of the Quaker pale, is something like 60. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 225 
 
 neither " dealt with," nor "disowned;" but left to the 
 reproving of his own conscience, and — he " went out aud 
 wept bitterly." And he became that mighty one whom 
 Catholicism has invested with the largest measure of grace 
 and power, from the assumed individual character of the 
 injunction : " Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will 
 build my Church, aud the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against it." Surely it is the duty of every Christian 
 Society to heal the breaches in its ranks, to reclaim the 
 fallen, to sustain the downcast, to extend its sympathy to 
 all. It is a nobler work to gather in than to expel. It is 
 a loftier calling to assure the doubting, to strengthen the 
 unstable, to comfort the spiritually afflicted, to " go out 
 iuto the highways and compel them to come in," than to 
 shroud oneself in the narrow formality of a rigid creed, 
 when every other creed is " moving heaven and earth to 
 make one proselyte." 
 
 For the refusal to proselytize is one of the many 
 reasons why, in an age of unparalleled activity and pro- 
 gress — an age in which we are " harnessing the vapours 
 to the rushing car," and sending our t^ta TTTtpoEvra with 
 lightning speed to another hemisphere — Quakerism is 
 dying of absolute inanition. " The Universal Light in 
 every man's own heart" does not, somehow or other, chris- 
 tianize the world, as Fox and Barclay said it would, and 
 was alone capable of doing. To ignore the medium of 
 human agencies, and organized instrumentalities, is at once 
 to repudiate God's own appointments, and His direct pro- 
 vidential arrangements. If Quakerism is the right way, 
 surely it is worth while to show it to be the right way, by 
 some other means than by a rigid exclusiveness, by the 
 publication of Rules of Discipline, and by attributing 
 working power to unsubstantial and unappreciable in- 
 
226 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 fluences. " I do not wish him (the Quaker) to have a less 
 spiritual conception of Christian morality, I want him not 
 practically to exhaust it of its spirit by depriving it of its 
 body. Above all, I want him to perceive that the scheme 
 which he has set up in the world for the purpose of estab- 
 lishing peace and charity in it, is a far less effectual one 
 than the scheme which God has set up in it for the same 
 end. 1 '* There is as much tact and worldly wisdom re- 
 quired, in presenting a particular creed to an ignorant 
 people, as in advertising a new discovery to an enter- 
 prising community. Whatever article we have to dispose 
 of, whether it be good or indifferent, the secret of its 
 success, in a measure, will lie in putting it before the 
 public in a presentable and attractive form. It is as 
 true in the religious, as in the intellectual or material, 
 world. A few good, earnest, self-denying men, who have 
 a thorough knowledge of human nature, will do more to 
 extend the borders of a religious sect (where superstition 
 is not an hereditary national curse), in one year, than 
 reservation, and " waiting" for spiritual movings, and pla- 
 titudes about " Holy Church," will do in twenty. A very 
 ordinary physician (by comparison) will make a fortune in 
 half the time that it will take another man, who has twice 
 his brains or his principle, simply because he has the tact 
 to make what information he has, available to every one 
 with whom he is brought in contact. He is gifted with 
 the savoir-faire which is the secret of success. There are 
 some men, Mr. Binney says, who can't get on, push them 
 as you may. They are weighted at both ends, and down 
 
 * The Kingdom of Christ ; or, Hints to a Quaker. By F. D. Maurice, 
 M.A., vol. ii., p. 360. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 227 
 
 they go, in spite of moral excellence, physical health, 
 spiritual earnestness, and every kind of external advan- 
 tage. In the same way the selection of a happy title for a 
 book, the bringing it out at the right moment, and at the 
 right price, and through the instrumentality of an enter- 
 prising publisher, will give it a sale which a far more 
 meritorious work will never attain to, without these well- 
 timed helps. I know many better sauces than " Lea and 
 Perrins Worcestershire," but then the respective pro- 
 prietors did not or could not advertise. I know many 
 exhibitions more interesting and instructive than the 
 Baker-street Bazaar ; but Madame Tussaud has tact, 
 and money, and gewgaw glitter in a big room, and a 
 "Chamber of Horrors" in a little one — which the world 
 knows how to appreciate. I know many better preachers 
 than Mr. Spurgeon, but then they won't gesticulate, 
 " thunder at high heaven," and pander to the depravity of 
 a particular form of public taste ; and they live and die — 
 not, thank God, unhonoured, but, at least, relatively 
 unknown. I know many a worse creed than the best 
 development of modern Quakerism, but, save its proto- 
 type, I do not know a less attractive one, or one so 
 rapidly declining. This ought not to have been so : such 
 men as Gurney, and Allen, and Hutchinson, and Reynolds, 
 and Forster, ought never to have suffered this, believing, 
 as they did, in the superiority of their own religion, and 
 having been endowed, as they were, with the expansiveness 
 of modern civilization. But I am wrong. These men 
 could not help themselves. The very expansiveness I 
 have alluded to was the very breaking down of that 
 hedge which for two centuries had hedged them from 
 the world — a declaration of the powcrlessness of their 
 "ancient" creed — an acknowledgment of a growing sym- 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 A FALLEX FAITH. 
 
 pathy, and a larger love. Every forward step was an 
 educement from their frigid and unattractive eclecti- 
 cism. How then could Quakerism, as such, proselytize, 
 ■with all the concurrent circumstances of a progressive age 
 against her ? What attraction had she to present ? Her 
 outward apparel would frighten any one gifted with 
 a sense of the ludicrous ; her impassivity and serious 
 deportment would depress the natural and heaven-born 
 cheerfulness of any youth ; her antagonisms to pleasures 
 and enjoyments, suggested as necessary by the intuitive 
 perceptions of our own natures, could not for a moment 
 be entertained; whilst her fundamental doctrine is repu- 
 diated by the history of every past age, and is an 
 intangible subtlety to the present one. And consequently 
 she made no converts, save occasionally in some stray 
 Protestant, who imagined himself (or herself) to be satiated 
 with worldly pleasures, and sought in a Quaker convent, 
 that is in the Quaker "world," a protection from life's 
 vanities and dissipations. This is precisely what happened 
 to the most celebrated of modern converts to the Society 
 of Friends. But hers was the wrong nature for it, and 
 her monastic initiation was at the wrong period, just when 
 discipline was relaxing, and doing a not insensible homage 
 to the world. The consequence was, that though she 
 " assumed the garb, and even the shibboleth of the sect," 
 Mrs. Opie was really no more a Quaker than I am. She 
 continued the same cheerful, happy, lively woman to the end 
 of life. There are no gloomy and depressing thoughts in 
 her letters, no anatomy of " religious feelings " in her 
 Journal ; and if (as J. J. Gurney said) we are " all to be 
 true Quakers in heaven," I do not think we shall find her 
 there. She was visiting among her friends ; she was 
 entering into all the gaieties of Paris, alone, and in- 
 
 # 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 229 
 
 cognito.* She was " enjoying la Baronne's party, and 
 her tea and her cakes, and coming home a little past 
 midnight." f At another time she " had a brilliant 
 party of distinguished persons." X She was dazzled by 
 the splendour of the shops in the Palais Royal ; she 
 enjoyed the merry sight of the Tuileries Gardens, and the 
 groups of buoyant natures there congregated. 
 
 " She loved to go sit in the sun there, 
 The flowers and fountains to see, 
 And to think of the deeds that were done there, 
 In the glorious year ninety-three." 
 
 Mrs. Opie's nature, says her biographer, was " many- 
 sided, and elastic; she could, and did, take a living 
 interest in all the varied forms of life and society, and 
 could be in the world though she was not of it." This 
 was what constituted the very perfection of the convert 
 and showed her to be no real Quaker. He professes to be 
 neither in it nor of it. But we know what is the actual fact 
 de re pecuniariet. Mrs. Opie could fall in with the advice 
 of those around her, and record in her Parisian Journal : 
 " My friends here have persuaded me to be at home on 
 one particular day; and so on the Seventh-day morning I 
 receive from one to five, and I have beauconp de monde."§ 
 And then on " First-day morning'' it was : " A night of 
 wind ! a day of rain ! went to the Champs Elysees. Our 
 sitting was still, and I trust favoured." || It is really quite 
 refreshing to read the lively letters and journal of this 
 
 * 1830. 5th of Uth Mo.— Well (said I to myself when I was 
 left alone) here I am actually at Paris ! and alone at Paris : few of 
 my friends in England knew I was coming, aud none in France 
 know that I am here ! A new and strange position ; but the incog- 
 nito is not without its charms ! (Journal.) — Memorials of the Life of 
 Amelia Opie, by Cecilia Lucy Brightwell, p. 249. 2nd edit., 1854. 
 
 t Ibid., p. 254. I Ibid., p. 280. § Ibid., p. 267. || Ibid., p. 254. 
 
230 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 excellent woman, after the morbidly depressing ones of 
 Mrs. Fry and Joseph J. Gurney, and to observe the esti- 
 mation in which she was still held by her former friends. 
 
 Lady Charleville writes to her such an interesting 
 epistle, and pa) r s in it such a compliment to the Society of 
 Friends (of which she thought Mrs. Opie was the type of 
 individual membership), that I shall partly transcribe it. 
 " London, le 10 me Avril, 1828. Pour avoir le plaisir de te 
 tutoyer, je t'ecris, ma chere, en Francois, ou Ton tutoye 
 
 naturellement celles que Ton ainie Et je te 
 
 jure que, quand tu te ferois Bramine, cela me seroit egal, 
 tant quetu conserverais pour moi la meme bonte que jadis ! 
 
 . Pour la secte dont tu fais partie, — je la re- 
 specte au-dela de toutes les autres. Je ne vois rien 
 d'outre dans leur fa9ons depenser, et je voudrais etre 
 assez bonne pour me conduire comme eux. Viens nous 
 voir — j'en serai trop enchantee ; ton cceur n'est point 
 change, et je suis sure que ta costume ne te rendra pas 
 moins interessante pour tes amis. Comptez, ma chere, 
 que le temps ne fait nul effet sur moi, pour changer a 
 l'interet que je prendrai toute ma vie & toi."* 
 
 And Southey admirably alludes to the unchangeable 
 excellence of this interesting and accomplished woman, in 
 a letter which he wrote to her, and of which Mrs. Fry 
 afterwards requested a copy, " because I think that there 
 is much truth in its contents." f 
 
 "I have another woman in my mind's eye; one who 
 has been the liveliest of the lively, the gayest of the gay ; 
 admired for her talents by those who knew her only in 
 her writings, and esteemed for her worth by those who 
 were acquainted with her in the relations of private life ; 
 
 * Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie, p. 216. 
 t Ibid, p. 243. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 231 
 
 one who, having grown up in the laxest sect of semi- 
 christians, felt the necessity of vital religion, while attend- 
 ing upon her father with dutiful affection, during the long 
 and painful infirmities of his old age; and who has now 
 joined a sect distinguished from all others by its formali- 
 ties and enthusiasm, because it was among its members 
 that she first found the lively faith for which her soul 
 thirsted. She has assumed the garb and even the shibbo- 
 leth of the sect, not losing, in the change, her warmth of 
 heart and cheerfulness of spirit, nor gaining by it any 
 increase of sincerity; for with these nature had endued 
 her, and society, even that of the great, had not corrupted 
 them. The resolution, the activity, the genius, the bene- 
 volence, which are required for such a work,* are to be 
 found in her, and M ere she present in person, as she is in 
 imagination, I should say to her .... Thou art 
 the woman ! "f 
 
 It should seem, therefore, that the spirit of Quakerism 
 was not to be embraced so easily by a cheerful and intel- 
 ligent nature, which was not, at the period of its initiation, 
 assuming for the first time the spirit of Christianity. It 
 was the augmenting liberality of the Society, and the 
 beautiful characters of some of its best women who resided 
 in Norwich, and not the Religion of George Fox or Robert 
 Barclay, which allured Mrs. Opie. And she at once lent 
 a graceful charm to Friendship, by her literary attain- 
 ments and her many virtues, while she gave a most 
 well-timed impetus to the increasing desire within the 
 Quaker pale, for a larger foundation, and a more com- 
 prehensive creed. 
 
 * The establishment of Societies for reforming the internal 
 management of Hospitals and Infirmaries ; so as " to do for the 
 hospitals what Mrs. Fry had already done for the prisons." 
 
 f Southeys Colloquies, vol. iii., p. 322. 
 
232 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 Proselytism, then, on the part of the Society of Friends, 
 is simply a repudiation of first principles, and a deprecia- 
 tion of the value of all its antecedents. Not that Fox and 
 his immediate disciples did not attempt by every means in 
 their power, to undervalue and abuse every religion but 
 their own : but the moment the extravagant enthusiasm 
 of the first outburst had subsided, Quakerism became that 
 feeble impassivity which refused to lend itself to anything 
 of a persuading character, and left all to the unseen 
 workings of the Spirit. Whilst the yielding to the pro- 
 gressive influence of the age, during the last fifty years, has 
 involved a cession of many points which were formerly 
 deemed essentials, and has made proselytism only another 
 name for self-abandonment. 
 
 VIII. A growing conviction on the part of the most 
 educated and enlightened Quakers, that the notorious mate- 
 rial prosperity of the Society does not accord with its 
 exalted spiritual profession, though it does not absolutely 
 militate against the moral character of individual members. 
 
 Quakers have proved no exception to the general rule, 
 that where once the amor nvmmi is implanted, the amor 
 crescendi follows as an inevitable sequence. It is certain 
 that, both among friends and enemies, there has been a 
 very general opinion, that these gentle enthusiasts have 
 been peculiarly sensible of the advantages of material gain. 
 Nor does this opinion derive any diminution from the fact, 
 that one is naturally led to contrast the desire for the 
 aggrandizement of wealth, with the exalted spiritual pro- 
 fessions of the descendants of Fox and Penn. The Society 
 has, from the first, " professed " a high standard : it must 
 not, therefore, complain if it is tried by that which is 
 entirely and gi'atuitously of its own creation. It has been 
 written of late, perhaps with somewhat too caustic a 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 233 
 
 severity, that : " The Quakers as a body are almost as rich 
 as the Jews. They are almost always employed in com- 
 mercial affairs, and, generally speaking, with signal success. 
 They are the keenest and most successful of bankers and 
 brewers. Indeed they succeed as men of business much 
 as the Puritans succeeded as soldiers. A carnal bill- 
 discounter has no more chance against a Friend in the 
 same way of business, than Prince Rupert's dragoons had 
 against Cromwell's Ironsides."* 
 
 This state of things may be compatible with the strictest 
 honour and integrity ; but it is easy to understand, how the 
 best and purest of the Society should view the most no- 
 torious weakness of their brethren as a living evidence of 
 faithlessness. And it has been so much the more glaring, 
 from an assumed indifference to creature comforts, and 
 material pleasures, which no one can afford to underrate, 
 whose moral nature is equipoised and healthful. Our 
 great lexicographer had a peculiar contempt for those who 
 pretended that they had no regard for animal enjoyments. 
 " Some people," he says, " have a foolish way of not 
 minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For 
 my part I mind my belly very studiously ; for I look upon 
 it that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind 
 anything else." Now it is true that a man who was wont 
 to slobber over his waistcoat, and leave unctuous droppings 
 upon his bib ; who could drink fourteen cups of tea at a 
 sitting, abusing Nonconformists in the most unmeasured 
 terms, is not that type of excellence which we would set 
 up for imitation, in things pertaining to gastronomy or to 
 charity. But the contempt expressed in vigorous language, 
 by one of the most vigorous minds of the 18th century, 
 
 * Saturday Review, July 3, 1858. 
 
234 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 for an unreal indifference to the entertainments of the table, 
 is not altogether inappropriate in this place. 
 
 An apologist for Quakers, whose name is inseparably 
 connected with the slave-trade, and who wrote his dreary 
 Portraiture of the Society of Friends at the beginning of 
 the present century, admits that a money-getting character 
 has always been given to Quakers, and that some author 
 of his period had observed that they follow their concerns 
 in pursuit of riches " with a step as steady as time, and 
 with an appetite as keen as death." But he is of opinion 
 that the charge is not altogether well founded, that it has 
 arisen in a great measure from their well-known frugal 
 and inexpensive habits — from, in fact, their incomings 
 being always considerabty larger than their outgoings. 
 
 We must remember, however, in estimating the value of 
 Mr. Clarkson's views, that he is in the largest sense such 
 an "Apologist" for the Society of Friends, that it is mar- 
 vellous he was not one of its members; that he wrote his 
 treatise more than fifty years ago, and that in many points 
 it ma} r have but slight relative bearing to the present 
 generation. The spirit of advancement has been such and 
 so general ; mercantile interests have so extended ; the com- 
 mercial character of the country has been so developed ; 
 and the desire for material aggrandizement has become 
 such a complete passion with certain classes, during the 
 last half century, as to give England, over every other 
 nation, the pre-eminence of wealth. It would have been 
 singular if Quakers had escaped the general influence to 
 which all other communities were obnoxious, for they are 
 but men, of singular gravity of deportment, and singular 
 eccentricity of costume. They did not escape it, and the 
 Society of Friends, like every other Society, imbibed the 
 pecuniary spirit. If it was right and founded upon Scrip- 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 235 
 
 ture to send forth the envoys of " the gallery" without purse 
 and without scrip, knowing that the Lord would provide 
 for them; it was equally right and Scriptural to remember, 
 that " he that provides not for his own, and especially for 
 those of his own house, has denied the faith, and is worse 
 than an infidel." 
 
 Nevertheless, the best and purest of Quakers noted the 
 deterioration of their religious body, owing to the grasping 
 avarice and entire devotion to Mammon, for which many 
 members became notoriously conspicuous ; and were led to 
 exclaim with one of their chiefs, in reference to their own 
 decadence : " Alas ! for the power of the world, the flesh, 
 and the enemy ! " Mrs. Fry was constantly lamenting the 
 contrast between the " love of money" so apparent, and 
 " our lofty spiritual professions" so vaunted. " I want to 
 see," she said, " less love of gain, and more largeness of 
 heart." And Joseph John Gurney (himself one of the 
 most liberal and ungrasping of men, always fearful lest he 
 should save too much and give away too little) was terribly 
 oppressed with the thought of what Lombard-street was 
 doing to antagonize spirituality in his brother. " Mayest 
 thou," he writes to him, " be preserved in close watchful- 
 ness, with prayer, that the trammels of the world may not 
 hinder the growth of the immortal seed, or prevent thy 
 being wholly dedicated to the love, fear, and service of 
 God. The world will have its cares, but we need not 
 imbibe its spirit, and let us henceforth keep our hands 
 clean, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord."* This 
 Christian advice from a brother and a minister, to one who 
 (to adopt the words of his biographer) " was in the habit 
 of referring every event in the course of his city affairs to 
 the overruling providence of God,"f may not seem alto- 
 
 * Memorials of Samuel Gurney, p. 45. t Ibid., p. 46. 
 
23G 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 gether ill-timed or unnatural. For, doubtless, it was partly- 
 inspired by a remembrance of a letter from the man of 
 business (which I have previously quoted), in which he 
 wrote: — " A Lombard-street business, esjjecialli/ our oirn, 
 is so very engrossing, and does in reality require such 
 unremitting attention, that escape is not easy;" and 
 added, in conclusion — " I can only salve over my own 
 mind with the thought that my worldly engrossments 
 have not been entirely my own choosing — have come 
 upon me unsought, and may be for the present my 
 calling."* 
 
 That the money-getting spirit was very noticeable in 
 the Society, even at the beginning of the last century, 
 is evident from the constant exhortations in the Rules of 
 Discipline to a larger charity, and from the allusions to 
 the " hastening to be rich," as " a growing evil." And 
 not only had the growth of this Mammon-worship the 
 immediate effect of lowering the moral and religious tone 
 of the disciples with whom it originated, but it produced 
 very serious results as a means of lessening the numerical 
 force, in the generations which came after them. " The 
 young fry" (to adopt Barclay's expression applied to 
 Oxford and Cambridge deacons), who saw behind the 
 scenes, were astounded at the difference between un- 
 worldly profession and worldly reality. But there is 
 no harm in the acquisition of wealth, as long as it is 
 properly expended, upon correct objects of solicitude. 
 The evil lies in professing not to care for it, and in 
 acquiring it, and then not using it. Biches are a legiti- 
 mate object of amhition, as long as they are made to 
 minister to the wants and necessities of others. They 
 are both the antecedents and accompaniments of progress. 
 
 * Memorials of Samuel Gurnet/, p. 44. 
 
A l'ALLKN FAITH. 
 
 237 
 
 "Wealth is one of the causes of knowledge : and 
 knowledge (in Joseph John Gurney's own language) — 
 " Knowledge, with a sense of need, both temporally and 
 spiritually, is the first step to improvement." This im- 
 provement actually took place, and gradually removed 
 the disparity between high profession and actual achieve- 
 ment, by lessening the unreality of the one, and develop- 
 ing the substantiality of the other. This particularly 
 commends itself to our notice. Wealth, per se, as merely 
 an acquired something, with no outlets for its free dis- 
 pensation, is essentially demoralizing. But the moment 
 it increases knowledge, the sphere of usefulness is en- 
 larged, the susceptibility to liberal thought is generated, 
 there is an augmented outlet for charity, and he who is so 
 blessed becomes the medium of unnumbered blessings to 
 others. With this improvement came also, to the rising 
 generation, a perception of the desirableness of free com- 
 munication with their kind, of embellishing life with 
 many things which their predecessors had abjured, and 
 of recognizing complete intercourse with the Author of 
 all Good, through other and more satisfying channels 
 than that of spiritual insulation. Thus, Quaker Society 
 continued to expand ; and their expansion increased their 
 knowledge, developed their sympathies, redoubled their 
 power of augmenting and dispensing wealth, and led 
 them, in fact, out of themselves into a beautiful world 
 which their first Founder had forsworn in a period of 
 distracted reason, and a day of convulsed moral dark- 
 ness. Thus, every step to liberate themselves from the 
 thraldom of their antecedents, was an emancipation 
 from their own peculiar idiosyncrasies, a fraternization 
 with others, and a homage to the compound and many- 
 sided nature of all true advancement. Those who have 
 
238 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 not yielded to these enlarging influences constitute the 
 unhappy few, who, deteriorated in body and mind, remain 
 shrouded in the lifeless formality of self-complacent 
 unprogressiveness ; still " heaping up riches, and knowing 
 not who shall gather them/' Or else that still smaller 
 number, who are perpetually striving to mount to the 
 higher rounds, without first treading the lower ones, 
 of that ladder which is between earth and heaven; and 
 who ignore, to their own ceaseless misery, those humbling 
 conditions upon which, and which only, we can hold calm 
 and uninterrupted communion with God. 
 
 The labours of the Society of Friends in the cause of 
 slave emancipation, in the improvement of our prison 
 discipline, and in other philanthropic missions, all testify 
 more or less to the expansive liberality of the times, 
 rather than to the merits of a peculiar creed. From this 
 expansive influence the best Friends have not been able 
 to escape : they have virtually abandoned their " ancient 
 principles," though remaining nominally attached to the 
 Society. And this very expansiveness of necessity in- 
 volved a fraternization with others, a relinquishment, in 
 one sense, of that axiom of Fox's, which he meant for 
 social as well as religious application — " Come out from 
 among them, and be ye separate.''' In another sense, 
 however, they retained it : for their return to the world 
 was a separation from themselves. 
 
 But there is one characteristic of their body, which 
 has been much dwelt upon by those who are favourably 
 inclined towards Quakerism, as specially redounding to 
 their credit — namely, that they have no poor. Now, with- 
 out wishing in any sense to disparage the active charities 
 of transition Quakers — those, I mean, who, under the 
 warmth of general civilization, are merging from the 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 239 
 
 chrysalis of formality into an energizing and unfettered 
 excellence — and whose good deeds are equal to those of any 
 other Christian sect — I am desirous of asking what is meant 
 to be implied by this affirmation. Are we to understand 
 that the freedom of the Society from poor members, is 
 owing to unusual supervision on the part of the elders 
 and visitors, to the inculcation of thrifty habits, and to 
 the well-timed distribution of material assistance from the 
 general funds ? Is it not the rather true to state that 
 Quakerism itself has always appeared in so uninviting an 
 aspect, as never to retain but a very few, below a certain 
 social position, within its ranks ? Does not the adoption 
 of this creed involve so many negations of what is usually 
 recognized as necessary for the well-being of man ; so 
 many scruples of a finer and unappreciable sort ; so many 
 obstructions and hindrances to conventional conduct ; so 
 many clogs to useful citizenship, as to make it a very 
 questionable matter of policy, and an equally doubtful 
 matter of religious duty ? The repelling features of 
 Quakerism so far exceed its alluring ones ; and its powers 
 of adapting both sexes to the general purposes of life are 
 so universally disputed, that the poor are not likely to 
 cling to it so much as the wealthy. The latter can afford 
 to be religiously singular as well as singularly religious : 
 the former cannot. Mr. Clarkson says " that the poor, 
 comparatively speaking, are seldom disowned, for they 
 know that they shall never be so well provided for in any 
 other Society."* But the fact is, that the number of 
 those who bear the appellation of "poor" is so small, that 
 they can always secure abundant employment from their 
 own upper classes. Hence they are not really poor, but 
 
 Portraiture of Quakerism, vol. iii., p. 326. 
 
240 
 
 A * ALLEN FAITH. 
 
 only nominally so. These, of a truth, have no interest in 
 forsaking a community by whom they can earn an honest 
 livelihood, and from whom they are certain to obtain every 
 assistance, in case of misfortune or distress, not resulting 
 from their own misconduct. But now that the rich 
 Friends are forsaking the creed of their fathers, even the 
 few poor are doing so likewise ; and I am assured that all 
 the subordinate offices in Quaker mansions (for the rich 
 live in mansions nowadays, and are not ashamed to own it) 
 are filled by those who are not required to "thee and 
 thou " their masters and mistresses, or to refuse them the 
 outward demonstration of respect.* These observations 
 equally apply to the middle classes, who receive every 
 support as shopkeepers, not only from their own body, but 
 from Nonconformists of every persuasion, and from the 
 more liberal of the Church people likewise. 
 
 So that, whilst I am willing to acknowledge most entirely 
 the many objective forms which Quaker charity assumes, 
 and to do full justice to the philanthropy of the Society's 
 best members, in conjunction with other religious bodies, 
 it is hardly fair to give them credit, collectively, for a state 
 of things which is dependent upon the reciprocal arrange- 
 ments of social expediency, rather than on the perfection 
 of their eleemosynary provisions for the needy and the 
 poor. 
 
 * In a town with which I was well acquainted in early life, where 
 Quakers did abound, the number of poor was ridiculously small. 
 Personally I had no acquaintance with but one, and he was acknow- 
 ledged by his neighbours to be (what he appeared to me) a mean 
 and contemptible little fellow. But it is easy to understand how 
 Quakerism should make a low uneducated man a mass of most 
 repulsive self-sufficiency — and how little, therefore, he would attract 
 others, in the same social position, to his creed. 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 241 
 
 Perhaps to the above causes of the Decline of Quakerism, 
 may be added the fact, that during the last thirty years a 
 considerable stimulus has been given to all Nonconformist 
 bodies, by the withdrawal of certain restrictions, from 
 which the Society of Friends only enjoyed a previous 
 immunity. It is possible, therefore, under these circum- 
 stances, that some few members may have migrated from 
 an uncongenial but protecting creed, to another more 
 consonant with individual taste, and now under the benign 
 influence of Civil and Eeligious Liberty. 
 
 I have thus analyzed what appear to me to be suffi- 
 ciently explanatory reasons, why Quakerism should be 
 dying out of this country, and merging into other and 
 more liberal Christian organizations. It will be seen that 
 these causes do lie (as was suggested at the beginning of 
 this Essay) in an increasing degeneracy of the Society's 
 members ; in something wrong in the original constitu- 
 tion of the Society itself; in the Rules of Discipline and 
 Government; and in other extraneous but appreciable 
 influences. A brief Recapitulation will place the matter 
 succinctly before us. 
 
 Firstly : — The early History and the early Literature of 
 Quakerism, are neither of them of a character to lend 
 grace or dignity to a religious Eclecticism. The world 
 requires some better voucher for the verity of a Divine 
 Origin, than either insanity, or ignorance, or shameless 
 extravagances of speech and manner, or even the sincere 
 aspirations of an enthusiastic pietism. Neither the early 
 History, nor the early Literature, of the Society of Friends 
 will bear investigation ; and the very incubus of these two 
 facts robs it of a prestige which has always more or less 
 influence upon the acceptance and progress of every 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 undertaking. Even the undoubted fact of its persecution 
 fails to secure that sympathy which it would otherwise 
 possess, because, however disgraceful and unjustifiable 
 such persecution afterwards became, what was first termed 
 so was only a punishment of the most violent offenders 
 against public order and decency, as well as of the propa- 
 gators of uudeniable blasphemy. 
 
 Secondly : — The world is unable to appreciate, because 
 it cannot bring within the defined limits of a rational 
 creed, that fundamental doctrine of Quakerism, which 
 gives a priority to what is called Inward Testimony 
 over the written Kevelation of the Bible. The immense 
 majority of Christians, while they are anything but in- 
 sensible to the influence of the Divine Spirit, are yet of 
 opinion that Scripture itself is the " primary rule of 
 faith and manners," to which Christianity is to be con- 
 formed, and by which it is to be gauged. They believe 
 that any doctrine that is not based upon this view, is 
 practically open, even in the hands of the best intentioned 
 individuals, to the most extravagant abuse, and the most 
 dangerous perversion. For (whatever may be affirmed to 
 the contrary) it makes religious emotions, and spiritual 
 ecstacies, which are capricious and morbid, the uncertain 
 standard of individual excellence, rather than that Divine 
 Record which does not change, but is more immutable 
 than " the everlasting hills." They are convinced that 
 once having ascertained a standard to be truth, it derives 
 its chief value from being an unvarying indicator of right 
 and wrong, altogether independent of mortal weaknesses. 
 It must be set up, therefore, where each man can see it — 
 external to his own individuality, and under the shadow of 
 the Redeemer's Cross. 
 
 Thirdly : — It is believed by a large proportion of Chris- 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 243 
 
 tians (and their belief is confirmed by the experience of 
 every age, and supported by Scripture), that to refuse to 
 set men apart, and give them, by a particular kind of 
 education, a thorough knowledge of the human heart, and 
 of the power of properly applied religion to subdue it, is 
 neither wise nor politic. That, afterwards, the continued 
 refusal to organize the individuals so trained into a minis- 
 terial band — to constitute them into a distinct profession 
 — is to neglect the use of one of those providential engines 
 by which a world may be moved, and moved at the same 
 time towards God. That the value of a minister does not 
 depend upon his familiarity with concordant texts, or upon 
 the loftiness of his spiritual aspirations ; but upon the 
 special aptitude which he may have for teaching others 
 the principles of moral and religious Truth j and for 
 energizing into practical virtue, by his own tact, and 
 sociability, and general example, all those with whom he 
 may be brought in contact. That, in fact, as frequently 
 a very indifferent scholar may be a very good teacher ; and 
 a very indifferent teacher a good scholar — so a very excel- 
 lent spiritualist may be a very poor propagator of the 
 Gospel, and a very good propagator a comparatively feeble 
 and unemotional spiritualist. 
 
 That the perfection of real Evangelization is of so complex 
 a character, and dependent upon so many congruous influ- 
 ences, material, intellectual, moral, and religious ; requiring, 
 on the part of its teachers, such a complete devotion of 
 time and capacity, that any one who undertakes such 
 teaching must live by it ; and that to live by it, he must 
 from some quarter or other be handsomely remunerated. 
 That such remuneration should be fixed and definite, and 
 not dependent upon the spasmodic contributions of (per- 
 haps) a poor and unenlightened people. 
 
 r 2 
 
244 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 That woman, by reason of her emotional tendency; of 
 the manifold domestic duties which have been assigned to 
 her by Society, and by the intuitive perceptions of an 
 innate modesty, is only fitted to labour in a subordinate 
 capacity in the Lord's vineyard, where, as School-teacher, 
 or district-visitor, she becomes the Ministering Angel of 
 Godlike Charity. 
 
 And to these propositions I am desirous of adding the 
 circumstance, that neither the Jewish nor the Christian 
 schemes which constitute the Bible, have been conveyed 
 to us through the medium of man's helpmeet. That she — 
 beautiful in her humility — was only resorted to by the 
 Wisdom of the Father when, through the ordinary chan- 
 nel of man's birth, He gave to us the Incarnation of 
 the Son. That when that Son had fulfilled his mission, 
 and gone back to the heavenly mansions, she, the adorable 
 Mother, more capable, from her antecedents, and from her 
 personal knowledge of the " Great Sufferer," of ministering 
 to the wants of mortality than any living soul, was quietly 
 withdrawn from us, only once again to be mentioned in 
 Scripture : for " from that hour that Disciple (the beloved 
 John) took her unto his own home." 
 
 Fourthly : — Every act of worship is, or should be, an 
 attempt to bring ourselves into closer communion with 
 God, who, though " Infinite and Absolute," is yet revealed 
 most clearly to individual hearts as something less than 
 either the one or the other; as something, in fact (accord- 
 ing to Mr. Mansel), "conditioned" by our "conscious- 
 ness." The intercourse between earth and heaven is not 
 easy to originate, much less to perpetuate. Its perfect 
 continuity is only to be sustained through the medium of 
 subordinate instrumentalities, which constitute the divine 
 arrangements providentially adapted to our weaknesses, as 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 245 
 
 lessening the immeasurable distance between the finite 
 and the Infinite. " Silent worship " is a complete insula- 
 tion from every connecting medium, leaving even upon the 
 strongest mind a most unnatural (i. e. morbid) sense of 
 God's " awfulness " and unapproachableness. Originating 
 in the best and purest feeling, its result has shown how 
 daring is the attempt which should seek to carry mortal 
 man into the immediate presence of his Immortal Maker. 
 It does not, therefore, recommend itself to general accepta- 
 tion ; the majority of minds preferring a more substantial 
 and dependent homage, ranging between the limits of 
 verbal simplicity, and the most gorgeous elaborations of a 
 ritual worship. 
 
 Fifthly : — It is not generally apprehended with sufficient 
 clearness, that " vitiated religious sentiments have often too 
 much connexion with the principles of our physical consti- 
 tution to be effectively amended by methods that are simply 
 theological." A brisk purgation, a matutinal shower-bath, 
 a gentle stimulant, a judicious opiate, or a " dig in the 
 ribs," are, at times, wonderful adjuvants in the reduction of 
 a flimsy and fictitious pietism, to the equable reality of truth 
 and soberness. There are certain physical conditions on 
 which it is impossible to engraft the highest forms of 
 Christian virtue : and if the former are not susceptible of 
 amelioration, the latter are not to be courted with any rea- 
 sonable prospect of success. It is an increasing perception 
 of this fact which constitutes the secret of our progress in 
 home and foreign missions. We drain our towns; we improve 
 the dwellings of the poor; we encourage secular educa- 
 tion; we discourage, by appealing to statistical evidence, 
 where we cannot actually forbid by legislative enact- 
 ments, frequent intermarriages, as an indisputable cause 
 of somatic deterioration. We inculcate cheerfulness ; we 
 
246 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 disown " seriousness," as a mental habit incompatible 
 with the performance of our manifold Christian duties ; 
 and we regard an " emotional religion " as one of the most 
 pestilential nuisances which can afflict a community of 
 Christian men. For it is at one time (as in the case of J. 
 J. Gurney and Mrs. Fry, and all extravagant pietists), the 
 accompaniment of the purest aspirations, and the most 
 agonizing self-abasement : at another (as in the case of 
 some whom I shall not name), of the most inconsistent 
 conduct in the details of daily life, and the most unwar- 
 rantable spiritual self-sufficiency. We believe that " all 
 kinds of introverted mental action, even of the most 
 innocent sort, are more or less debilitating to both mind 
 and body, and trebly so when attended by powerful 
 emotions." 
 
 Sixthly : — The habits and conventional customs of a 
 Christian Society, if not professedly based upon Scripture, 
 are not repugnant to it. They necessarily vary with the 
 progress of civilization, and the development of man's 
 intellectual nature. True religion may be adapted to every 
 change ; and every change may and should be adapted to 
 true religion. The abuse of a thing by excessive and per- 
 verted usage is no justification, with educated persons, for 
 its equal abuse by no usage at all. Our discipline lies in 
 so using everything which surrounds us, as not to abuse it. 
 To repudiate the discipline is to repudiate the required 
 conditions of advancement to a perfect standard of Chris- 
 tian excellence. This is precisely what Quakerism has 
 done. It is a continuous defiance of public taste — a direct 
 antagonism to the protecting influences of social con- 
 ventionalities. The consequence is, that the Society of 
 Fi'iends, as such, has no sympathy with others, and others 
 have no sympathy with it. If its members have acquired 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 247 
 
 a character for honesty and sohriety, they have equally 
 secured to themselves a reputation for pertinacious ob- 
 stinacy. Laying claim to peculiar simplicity, they have 
 really only stripped religion of her accessories, and carried 
 all her ritual formalities into the details of daily life, and 
 the minutiae of social intercoui'se. Hence, both their 
 religion and their manners are at variance with those of 
 the generality of men about them, who believe it to be as 
 much a duty of religion to be compliant citizens, as to be 
 frequenters of church or chapel ; and who will not repudiate 
 the obvious advantages, to all, of systematic conformity to 
 the social code, for the very unappreciable benefits of 
 pseudo-spiritual obstructiveuess. Solitude being (as Bayard 
 Taylor describes it) "an immortal humbug," and a down- 
 right impostor, it is certain that no religious man ought 
 to be any the worse for mixing in society : it is equally 
 certain that he ought to be the better for it. Failing, the 
 fault is with the religion, and not with the society ; for 
 the latter is the proper field for the cultivation of the 
 former, and for the development of all those excellencies 
 which will be elaborated into perfection, when we "stand 
 up anew from the dust of dissolution." 
 
 As regards the larger questions of the unlawfulness of 
 Oaths and War: Quakers have every civil protection afforded 
 to their scruples, and they receive every credit for the 
 conscientiousness of their objections to the popular belief. 
 But here, too, their views are obstructive and unacceptable. 
 For the almost universal opinion is, that oaths are not 
 contrary to Scripture ; that some kind of juratory form, in 
 our present imperfect state, is a protection to morality and 
 truth ; that that which protects truth protects religion ; 
 that that which protects religion developes and accom- 
 panies the highest excellencies of Christian virtue, which 
 shall one day dispense with oaths. 
 
248 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 War is acknowledged to be one of the evils incidental 
 to an imperfect state. The improvement of the state will 
 do away with the necessity of the evil. Truly the peace- 
 makers are blessed ; but they are not peacemakers, and, 
 therefore, not blessed, who refuse to defend themselves 
 against aggression. Civilization is gradually removing the 
 causes of aggression ; Peace, and Blessing, and Universal 
 Brotherhood shall ensue ; " for the earth shall be filled 
 with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the 
 sea." 
 
 Seventhly : — Every age has special characteristics, by 
 which it is distinguished from those which have preceded 
 it. The most striking feature of our own day is progress. 
 Not a fanatical enthusiasm about one of the elements of 
 progress ; but a combined and well-adjusted movement, 
 which recognizes assistance from every quarter. Progi'ess 
 is stamped upon everything. Secular Education, scientific 
 discoveries, popular lectures on the topics of the day, freer 
 intercourse of class with class, the application of sanitary 
 and hygienic rules, the building of schools and places of 
 worship, the increased training of teachers, and the more 
 special instruction of Gospel ministers ; all these things 
 attest, by unmistakeable evidence, that we are not, 
 nationally, in a state of indolence or lethargy. An 
 immense impetus has been given to everything during 
 the last fifty years. All classes have yielded to this 
 impetus; and the various Churches, or religious organiza-. 
 tions, are stretching out their arms to gather in the 
 pilgrims to what may seem to each wayfarer to be his 
 most congenial shrine. The best of the Society of Friends 
 have not been backward ; on the contrary, they have 
 marched in the very van of progress. They have striven, 
 however, to Christianize, not to Quakerize. They have 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 249 
 
 believed, with the good Mrs. Fry, that there are serious 
 objections attached to every sect, and most serious ones 
 to a sect which is unreal ; and that one cannot too fully 
 recognize, or too strongly inculcate, " the unutterable 
 largeness of the real foundation." These very facts have 
 constituted the Quakers' own emancipation from them- 
 selves, and have led them to leave to the discernment of 
 their own children the paths by which they should walk 
 towards Heaven. This emancipation, too, has involved a 
 distinct and necessary repudiation of the fundamental 
 doctrine of the Society. " For certain it is, and clear to 
 demonstration, that whosoever holding the principle of 
 ancient Quakerism — the perceptible teaching of the Spirit 
 — on the ground of conventional consistency, withholds 
 either directly or indirectly from the young, the ignorant, 
 the tempted, that counsel, instruction, warning, and sym- 
 pathy which they need, does it on his own private, 
 personal, intransferable responsibility, exclusively and 
 alone;" refuses to expand with the expansiveness of the 
 times, and lays himself open to a worse charge than that 
 only of perpetuating intellectual and moral stagnation. 
 
 Eighthly : — A corporate Society, be it religious or be it 
 political, must have great superiority over other Societies, 
 when it can afford to be exclusive, to " disown/' to refuse 
 to proselytize, and yet still not incur a diminution in its 
 numbers. It is not by any means clear that Quakerism 
 has this superiority ; but the Rules of Discipline are an 
 acknowledgment of its exclusiveness ; and its fundamental 
 doctrine will not admit of proselytism. Younger members 
 of the Society of Friends, who have not been gifted with 
 very large appreciation of the "ancient testimonies'' of its 
 first disciples, have treated " Disownment," under the sanc- 
 tion of their parents, much as the Protestant Churches 
 
250 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 have often treated an Excommunicating Bull from St. 
 Peter's. 
 
 Thus, Quakerism has diminished, and become the skele- 
 ton we now see it. There is none can put life iuto its dry 
 bones; for progress and augmentation are the true elements 
 of Life. 
 
 Ninthly : — There is nothing more singular in connexion 
 with the Society of Friends, than their undoubted material 
 prosperity, as compared with the loftiness of their spiritual 
 professions. Every one is cognizant of this fact, and re- 
 marks upon it in a manner which, if it does not imply 
 absolute mistrust and disapproval, at least suggests a ques- 
 tion — ' How are these glaring contradictions to be explained 
 — how are these obvious inconsistencies to be reconciled ? ' 
 The answers (as I have previously shown) have been various, 
 and very far from satisfactory, even to the best of the 
 Society's own members. If the spirit of acquisition be- 
 comes a passion (as Mrs. Ery believed it had become), and 
 is accompanied by a narrow unexpansiveness and a timid 
 liberality, there ensues a mental and moral deterioration, 
 which constitutes the most offensive feature in the character 
 of many Quakers. If it be otherwise, to be generous is 
 to fraternize with other religious denominations; to be 
 liberal is to enlarge the heart's boundaries; to expand is to 
 escape from the frigid formalities of an uncongenial creed. 
 Wealth is not then a passion, but a noble ambition, which 
 is made to minister (as it has done with hundreds of ex- 
 cellent Friends) to a boundless philanthropy, and feed the 
 abundant streams of a creedless but Heaven-born Charity. 
 The high standard professed, has been the Society's own 
 creation. By that standard the world judges them, and they 
 are found practical shortcomers, and unreal religionists. 
 
 Lastly: — It is possible that the spread of civil and reli- 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 251 
 
 gious Liberty, during the last thirty years, by nearly equali- 
 zing the privileges of all Nonconformist bodies, may have 
 drawn some members from the Society of Friends. 
 
 Seeing, then, that these things are so, and that "Ancient 
 Quakerism " must, by the very constitution of things, 
 continue to be more at variance with public taste, and with 
 the conventionalisms of Society, as Time and all things are 
 progressing : seeing that its fundamental doctrine of the 
 " Universal Light " — the perceptible teaching of the 
 Spirit — is productive, when pushed to its extreme (as it is 
 sure to be by the really good aud excellent who embrace 
 it), of the most agonizing and unprofitable mental disquie- 
 tude ; and equally productive of self-complacency in those 
 who are absorbed in the ceaseless rounds of pecuniary 
 aggrandizement, what is there to be said why the sen- 
 tence of annihilation which has gone forth against this 
 singular Eclecticism should not be fully executed ? Has 
 Quakerism nothing to recommend it ? Is there nothing 
 about it which can be utilized, and adapted to the exact- 
 ing service, not only of the nineteenth century, but (with 
 Dr. Cumming's permission) of all the centuries which 
 are to come? What has this creed done? What has 
 it not done ? Has it looked upon life as a jubilant 
 and blessed thing? Has it instituted in its followers a 
 manly virtue, growing by the natural discipline of tempta- 
 tion, purified by the preternatural breathings of Grace ? 
 Has it energized its disciples into that serene cheerfulness 
 without which the mind never attains to healthfulness, and 
 the soul never tastes of peace ? Or, dissatisfied with this 
 theatre of existence, which has been crowded with 
 countless heroisms, from the first triumph over temptation 
 by one never so feeble, to the great and crowning sacrifice 
 
A FALLEX FAITH. 
 
 of the Son of God, has it repudiated all that is solid and 
 beautiful, for some soul-sophisticating subtlety — clothed 
 itself in elaborate grotesqueness, and uttered the self- 
 complacent cry, " Touch me not, handle me not : I am 
 holier than thou ? " Has it, or has it not, essayed for 
 two centuries to do that with the healthy stimulant of 
 Life, which " a Century of Divines" is now seeking to do 
 with the Grain and the Fruit of Life — placing a resti'ic- 
 tion upon the beneficence of God, and establishing in lieu 
 thereof a system meet only to be the miserable expedient 
 of the weakest sensualist — the last resource of insane de- 
 pravity ? Let History and A Fallen Faith answer. But, 
 I repeat, has Quakerism nothing to recommend it? If the 
 term " ancient " comprised only its period of initiation, I 
 would affirm that nothing could be said in its favour ; for 
 the good which it did was far outweighed by the mischief 
 and the serious evil which it generated. But as this 
 religious corporation has existed among us for the last 
 hundred years, it has a distinguishing feature which has 
 ever appeared to me both wonderful and beautiful. Won- 
 derful it is because of its extreme rarity ; and because if 
 there was one thing which the First Founder of Quakerism 
 had not, it was the characteristic to which I am alluding. 
 Beautiful it is because it may lend grace and attractiveness 
 to almost any Creed — for Charity has been said to " cover 
 a multitude of sins." 
 
 When Ave think of the fiendish barbarities which have 
 been perpetrated by religious persecutors, impressed with 
 the strongest belief that Heaven was to be won through 
 rivers of martyred blood, and through the ceaseless indul- 
 gence of "the malign passions:" when we bear in mind 
 that, even in our own day, there is scarcely an unkind 
 thing which one zealous Christian will not say of another, 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 253 
 
 from whom he differs ; and contrast with these demora- 
 lizing realities the Love and Mercy of that Gospel through 
 which we hope, and of that Redeemer whose every act was 
 kindness, and who died, and who now lives, that we, dying, 
 may live also — what man will dare to say, that Charity, 
 when met with, is not a jewel of priceless value ? 
 
 I have heard Romish preachers yell out their furious 
 anathemas against (what they termed) " the hellish apos- 
 tacy" of the English Reformation. I have heard young 
 "Anglo-Catholic" clergymen dogmatize with true neophytic 
 intemperance on doctrinal subtleties which they had hardly 
 embraced twelve months, and avow that the safety of all 
 mankind hung upon their acceptance. I have heard 
 " Evangelical " clergymen pay back the Romanist in 
 language as bitter and vindictive as the devil himself 
 could conceive or utter. I have heard " Nonconformist 11 
 preachers, of various denominations, so coarse and offen- 
 sive in their phraseology, as of necessity to shock minds 
 endowed with the least delicacy or refinement — heard them 
 propose heaven upon such terms, and as the theatre of such 
 extraordinary occupations, as would make it very unac- 
 ceptable to a large proportion of Christians. I have 
 heard all these things, I say, and yet I never heard a 
 Quaker exceed by language, nor saw him overstep by 
 manner, the narrowest limits of Christian Charity. 
 
 Wonderful and beautiful indeed ! O this outweighs 
 so many perversities, and weaknesses, and ruinous mis- 
 apprehensions of God's dealing with His people, that it 
 almost forces one's assent to Joseph John Gurney's affirma- 
 tion, that " Quakerism, rightly understood, is nothing 
 more or less than the Religion of the New Testament." 
 It makes one almost question whether it has been right 
 to attest so largely, and so congruously, against a creed 
 
254 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 which has been thus shrouded and protected. And yet it 
 must be added, that the charity so unfailing in the Society 
 of Friends is of a puny and unprogressive sort, and 
 does not reach that high standard which may be at- 
 tained by the same virtue under other religious fostering. 
 The moment it reaches the higher standard (as it did 
 with Mrs. Fry) it has escaped from its original im- 
 passivity, deserted its own cradle, and energized itself into 
 the active excellence which increases and dispenses bless- 
 ings as it flows. This constitutes its superiority. It is no 
 longer the negative charity only, which refuses to speak ill 
 of its neighbour, or to resent an injury. But it is a 
 large and abundant liberality of thought and feeling : 
 unreserved, frank, generous, sympathizing with every way- 
 farer, and bringing all to the tree of Life and Knowledge. 
 This is the charity which is needed — a charity which does 
 not " disown/' does not refuse consolation to the doubting 
 — but embraces all men in the arms of Love and Mercy. 
 
 O that with the decadence of Quakerism may come not 
 to us, nor to any land, the extinction of even that im- 
 passive charity, without some measure of which no man 
 can be serenely happy, or dare to hope for that Mercy, 
 which, even to the most guilty of us, may, perchance, be 
 boundless and eternal ! O that we may receive from the 
 deserting members of the Society which has nearly run 
 its course, that charity which has not fully availed their 
 collective body, because it has lacked the accompaniment 
 of that knowledge, which consists in making the dangers 
 of this life the discipline to prepare and purify us for 
 the next ! This is true wisdom. This is the basis on 
 which to raise the splendid superstructure of spiritual 
 communion, and religious Faith. 
 
 To this desiderated consummation has the dying 
 
A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 255 
 
 Society of Friends been invited, in tones of Christian 
 earnestness, by one who is above my feeble praises, but 
 whose love and labour are known to all. It has been 
 appealed to to hasten the " Kingdom of Christ" on earth, 
 ere we are gathered to the everlasting Kingdom in Heaven. 
 
 It has been urged, too, in tones of glowing eloquence, 
 with which I shall conclude this Essay — it has been urged by 
 one of its own members, who laments, but does not marvel, 
 at its fall, to stand up from its unintellectual lethargy, 
 and shake off that impassivity which is far less than the 
 measure of its decay. For, says he, "for lack of knowledge — 
 that knowledge which the light of ecclesiastical history has 
 since afforded — the early confessors and martyrs of our 
 common religion initiated a spiritual despotism the most 
 dire that ever proved the opprobium of the Church, and the 
 curse of the world. Long afterward, in times of intense 
 reaction against the usurped authority of man, for lack of 
 knowledge, a Nayler and others are seen to mistake the 
 workings of a distempered feeling for revelations of the 
 Spirit of God. A William Penn, with complacent hos- 
 pitality, carries the fatal fire- waters to American Indians. 
 In our own day, we have seen a whole party of devoted 
 Christian Missionaries ruin their hallowed enterprise, and 
 themselves perish miserably, for lack of the knowledge 
 possessed even by the rough seaman who tracked them too 
 late to their last resting-place, and whose tears fell fast 
 over their mouldering remains. Lastly, and more speci- 
 fically to the purpose than all, we have at this moment 
 before our eyes, the sad spectacle of a religious society, 
 more desirous, if we may trust to its own averments, than 
 any other, of being led and guided in all things by the 
 infallible Spirit, yet so completely misunderstanding (as it 
 seems) its own fundamental principle, as to deem it in- 
 
256 
 
 A FALLEN FAITH. 
 
 compatible with that organized instrumentality without 
 which even Christian communities are permitted, appa- 
 rently by God's decree, to dwindle into insignificance, or 
 sink into utter extinction."* 
 
 Is not this, indeed, to realize, in a corporate capacity, 
 what was said by a wise man of old concerning individual 
 mortality — that he that " waudereth out of the way of 
 understanding shall remain in the congregation of the 
 dead " ? 
 
 * The Principle of Ancient Quakerism, etc., p. 38. 
 
 RICHARD BARRETT, PRINTER, MARK LANE, LONDON'. 
 
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8 
 
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5, BISIIOPSGATE WITHOUT. 
 
 9 
 
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10 
 
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