Quaker Strongholds

by Caroline Emelia Stephen

Quietness naturally accompanies the belief in this inward guidance, not only because in the Divine presence all that is merely human necessarily sinks into silent insignificance, but also because it is instinctively felt that it is only in stillness that any perfect reflection from above can be formed in the mirror of the human spirit. The natural fruit of mysticism is quietism.

I have no means of estimating the actual prevalence of mystical and quietist principles in the Society of Friends at the present time. But I am sure that our Society is the natural home for the spirits of all those who hold them, for it is the one successful embodiment of these principles in a system of “Church government.” Every arrangement is made to favour and to maintain the practice of looking for individual inward guidance, and to give the freest scope to its results. Everything which tends to hinder obedience to it is abandoned and discouraged. I shall endeavour to trace the working of this aim in various special directions hereafter. I must now endeavour to explain as well as I can what it is precisely that I understand by that inward light, voice, or Divine guidance which we Friends believe it our duty and our highest privilege in all things to watch for.

I do not, indeed, claim that my own share in this deepest region of human experience amounts to more than a faint and intermittent glimmering of what I know to be possible. I earnestly desire to explain to others what to myself has been especially blessed and helpful in the deepest unfoldings, whether by word or in life, of Quaker principles; but I feel that the task would demand for its full accomplishment not only greater powers than mine, but also the assistance which can be given only by something more than candour in the reader—by a real desire to help out the stammering utterance, and to supply the gaps left by individual shortcomings. To such a helpful auditor, therefore, I will in imagination address myself.

Faithfulness to the light is the watchword of all who hunger and thirst after righteousness—of all seekers after the kingdom of heaven. Is this merely an equivalent for the more commonplace expression, “obedience to conscience”? Surely not. Conscience, as we all know, is liable to perversion, to morbid exaggerations, to partial insensibility, to twists and crotchets of all sorts, and itself needs correction by various external standards. Conscience, therefore, can never be our supreme and absolute guide. Whether it can ever be right to disobey it, must depend on the precise meaning we attach to the words “conscience” and “right,” and into this puzzle I have no intention of entering. In a broad and practical sense, we all know that if there were nothing above conscience, conscience would assuredly lead many of us into the ditch; nay, that, for want of enlightenment from above, it actually has led many there. The light by which our consciences must be enlightened, the light in obedience to which is our supreme good, must be something purer than this fallible faculty itself. It must be that power within us, if any such power there be, which is one with all the wisdom, all the goodness, all the order and harmony, without us; one with “the power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness;” one with “the eternal will towards all goodness.” It must be a power as all-pervading and immanent in the spirit of man as is the power of gravity (or whatever yet more elementary force gravity may be resolved into) in the outer world he inhabits. It must be the power in which we live and move and have our being—the power and the presence of God.

I do not attempt—idle indeed would be the attempt in such hands as mine—to contribute anything towards the arguments in favour of Theism. To those who do not believe in the existence of the living God, the whole subject upon which I am engaged must be without interest or significance. And I leave it to others to reconcile, or to show that we need not attempt to reconcile, the existence of evil with the omnipotence of God. The mystery in which all our searchings after a complete theory concerning the Author of our being must needs lose themselves need not perplex, though it may overshadow, those practical questions as to our own right attitude towards Him with which alone I am concerned. I assume faith in Him and allegiance to Him as the very ground under our feet; if this be not granted, it is idle to go further. My reason for going so far even as I have done in this direction (the direction, I mean, of inquiring into our fundamental assumptions) is that I cannot help thinking that our Quaker faith respecting immediate Divine guidance rests upon a wider basis of common conviction than is usually supposed. I believe it to be the legitimate, though by no means the frequent, result of any sincere belief in God, however attained—not merely an outgrowth from one peculiar form of Christianity. The coldest and most cautious Theist can say no less than that God does in some sense direct the course of this world and of all that is in it. The most ecstatic mystic can bear witness to nothing beyond the fact that God does in deed and in truth pervade and sway the inmost recesses of his own being. Is not this the very same truth, seen under the magnifying and amplifying power of first-hand experience?

To me it seems idle to attempt to find any resting-place between convinced atheism on the one hand, and absolute self-surrender to the indwelling influence of the Divine Spirit on the other; the barrier, if there be any barrier, is surely not so much a logical as a moral hindrance. Believing in God, and worshipping Him with one’s whole heart, trusting Him absolutely and loving Him supremely, seem to me to be but various stages in the growth of one seed. I know, alas! but too well, that this growth is slow, and that it meets with obstacles and checks at every moment. I know that our faith has not only to struggle, but to struggle through the darkness, and that it may be challenged at every step by difficulties which it cannot solve. But I cannot admit that there is any consistency or reason in treading the path of faith half-way. I cannot admit that it is reasonable to believe in God as the Supreme Being, and unreasonable to seek His living presence and direction in the minutest details of our everyday life. With Him, surely, our distinctions of great and small disappear, and “the darkness is no darkness at all.” “Whither shall I go then from Thy presence? If I go down into hell, and remain in the uttermost parts of the earth, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.”

But many will say, This may all be quite true, but how are we to distinguish between the voice of God and the many other voices which distract our attention from it? How, if God is everywhere, does the practical result differ from His being nowhere? To the full extent of my ability I recognize this great difficulty. It seems to throw us back for guidance upon those very powers whose insufficiency we have just recognized. If I reply, God is to be recognized in “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are pure, and lovely, and of good report,” you may well retort, And how, except through our fallible consciences, shall we discern truth, purity, loveliness?

I believe that the difficulty of distinguishing between the will, or the voice, or the light of God, and the wills and voices and lights of a lower kind from which it is to be distinguished, is not only not to be ignored, but that the very first step towards learning the lesson is to recognize that it is a lesson, and a hard one—nay, a lifelong discipline. But just as the child trusts instinctively, absolutely, helplessly, before it has even begun to attempt to understand its parents, so, surely, we may and must trust God first and unreservedly, before we begin slowly and feebly, yet perseveringly, to acquaint ourselves with Him. And as the trust of the full-grown son or daughter is a nobler thing than the trust of the infant, so the experience of wisdom and prudence has doubtless a revelation of its own—a precious addition to that essential revelation which is made in the first place to babes, and to the wise only in so far as they too have childlike hearts. To have our senses exercised to discern between truth and falsehood, light and darkness, order and disorder, the will of God and the will of the flesh, is, I believe, the end and object of our training in this world. There is no royal road to it. Yet can we honestly say that it is impossible?

If, then, it is only by a slow and gradual process that we can rise to anything like a true knowledge (even according to our human measure) of God, must it not be by a slow and gradual process alone that He can make His voice and His guiding touch distinguishable by us and intelligible to us? Is it any wonder if those who do not attribute to Him so much as the broad obvious laws by which we are all hedged in from gross wrong-doing and error, should fail to recognize the reality or the significance of those delicate restraining touches by which the spirits which yield themselves to His care are moulded into some faint likeness to the Son of His love? Must not the first step towards entering into the meaning of that which is personal and individual be the acceptance of what is equally applicable to all?[6]

That individual and immediate guidance, in which we recognize that “the finger of God is come unto us,” seems to come in, as it were, to complete and perfect the work rough-hewn by morality and conscience. We may liken the laws of our country to the cliffs of our island, over which we rarely feel ourselves in any danger of falling; the moral standard of our social circle to the beaten highway road which we can hardly miss. Our own conscience would then be represented by a fence, by which some parts of the country are enclosed for each one, the road itself at times barred or narrowed. And that Divine guidance of which I am speaking could be typified only by the pressure of a hand upon ours, leading us gently to step to the right or the left, to pause or to go forward, in a manner intended for and understood by ourselves alone.[7]