Quaker Strongholds

by Caroline Emelia Stephen

Quakerism in its origin was a bold and successful struggle to do this. The glory of early Quakerism was in its integrity, in its uncompromising, unflinching requirement that the life should bear witness to the truth, and its resolute stand against any other requirement. The “inner light” was not only a word of the deepest poetical and mystical significance; it was a doctrine of sternest righteousness, and at the same time an assertion of resolute independence. Those who were conscious of the shining of Divine light into their own hearts needed no priestly absolution or interposition. They were willing to stand or fall by their innocence in the sight of all men. Their very gaolers often trusted them to convey themselves to their distant prisons if they had but promised. It was well known in those early days that a Friend’s word was as good as his bond; and to this very day a reputation for special truthfulness and sobriety clings to them, and not, I believe, without reason.

I am anxious to insist upon the resolution to maintain a high moral standard amongst us, not only because of the supreme intrinsic importance of righteousness; not only because I believe that as religion is cleared of outward and ceremonial and perishable elements this indestructible growth of holiness has more room to expand; but also because it cannot be denied, and should, indeed, never be forgotten, that there is a very real ground for the suspicion, or, at any rate, the jealous scrutiny, with which any peculiarly exalted spiritual aspirations are apt to be regarded.

There is a well-known and very awful connection between religious emotion and emotions arising from sources less pure. There is an ever-present danger lest in any endeavour to stimulate the one we should rouse the other, and a still worse danger lest the lower should assume the garb and appearance of the higher. The history of religious revivals affords abundant warning of the dangers inseparable from all sudden outbursts of feeling, even where much of it is deep and true and lasting.

No doubt the founders of the Society of Friends had their share of such instructive and at times mortifying experience.[30] They were brave men, and knew the reality of their own deep experience, and were not easily discouraged by a few extravagances (they appear, indeed, to have been remarkably few) amongst their followers. But there is reason to think that they were strongly impressed with the importance of specially guarding the sobriety becoming the children of the day, at a time when their own preaching was working in men’s minds like new wine. Besides the one great and invariable safeguard of their constant preaching of righteousness, and appeal to the light without as the test of the reality of the light within, there were two special precautions which they consciously or unconsciously took against the danger of spiritual, or quasi-spiritual, excitement.

One of these was the full recognition that the action of the Spirit of God upon the heart consisted not only in impulse but in restraint, and that for its right interpretation the part of the creature was to be quiet. “Stand still in the light” is one of the familiar burdens of George Fox’s advice. Friends were, and are still, as carefully taught to submit to the restraints as to yield to the impulses of “best wisdom.” To “dwell deep,” to “pause upon it,” not to proceed unless “way opens,” nor on any account to disregard a “stop in one’s mind,”—these and many such familiar Quaker admonitions show by how much “holy fear” their zeal has habitually been tempered.

“Quietism” is, indeed, the natural accompaniment of “mysticism” (of mysticism, that is, in the sense of belief in the inner light). That a vivid sense of the presence of the Creator should bring stillness to the creature is inevitable. And only under the restraining and controlling power of the deep awe thus inspired can it be safe or wholesome for the human spirit to stand in the immediate presence of its own Divine Source. There was surely a deep truth in the old Hebrew feeling, “Shall man see God and live?” Religious emotion need not be unreal to be unwholesome. The deeper the chord stirred, the more awful the danger arising from any jarring or deviation from the due and steady amount of tension.

Another precaution against the danger of yielding to excitement or to immature or unguarded impulse, is provided in our whole system of “Church government” and oversight, and especially in the importance attached to ascertaining “Friends’ unity” with any proposed religious service before proceeding in it. This is a curious and beautifully adapted sheath provided for the buddings of a ministry which is free in the sense of being entirely spontaneous, prompted only by an impulse believed to be from above. It is by no means an unknown thing, perhaps not even an uncommon thing (but of this I speak from but scanty opportunities of observation), for Friends in their business meetings to discourage “concerns” which do not appear to them to be justified by reasons sufficiently weighty, or which in some other way fail to commend themselves to the judgment of the meeting.

Not only directly, but also by the indirect effect of the value thus collectively and traditionally assigned to care and caution in handling spiritual things, do these recognized practices tend to inculcate sobriety and patience. And above all it is a deeply ingrained feeling in the Quaker mind that every vessel to be used for sacred purposes must before all things be clean. Every one coming forward as a minister of the gospel especially must approve himself, or herself, in the full light of day as not only preaching, but living, according to the Spirit of Truth.

And these “ministers,” be it remembered, are not people leading a sheltered and separate life; but men and women engaged in the ordinary business of life, following trades and professions, and sharing in all the daily experiences of those to whom they minister. Is there not something peculiarly adapted to the needs of our day in the combination of matter-of-fact, wholesome, sober independence with the thorough-going and unreserved spirituality and purity of our acknowledged aim—that, namely, of living under the immediate guidance of the Spirit of Truth?

It is here that I see in the ideal of Quakerism the one perennially right and fruitful ideal of Christian life—obedience to truth in the fullest and highest sense; the living truth—not truth in the sense of accurate or orthodox belief about Christ, but of an actual partaking of His Spirit, who Himself is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; a learning through obedience to know His voice, and a continual witness-bearing to others of the reality and the power of His living presence and teaching. We can bear this witness in one, and only in one, way; our lives must be penetrated by the light—the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world—penetrated and kindled and purified, till they too shine both inwardly and outwardly. The life is the light of men.