Side by side with the attempt to rationalize and restate in terms of modern thought the faith that is in them is a movement enrolling growing numbers, particularly of younger Friends, in both continents, in the direction of expressing Quakerism in terms of modern life.

Home life, social life, business life, every modern development, is brought to the test of Quaker principles. There is a spirit abroad declaring that Quakerism has become devitalized; that the religious life is stereotyped and perfunctory; that the joyous, all-conquering zeal of the early Friends was the outcome of a secret unknown to their followers; that the way to the fount at which they were sustained is lost—that it may be found again if the daily life is brought under Divine control. A call has gone forth to sacrifice, to scale the heights of right living in that purer air, that the sight may grow clear.

Everywhere in Quakerdom we meet this question as to the secret of the early Quakers. Do we read in this outcry an admission of the failure of group mysticism as it has so far been attempted by the Society of Friends? The little church of the spirit seems to be at the turning of the ways.

All barriers are down. The rationale of primitive Quakerism is fully established. The Quakers no longer stand facing an outraged or indifferent Christendom. The principles “discovered” by their founder are conceded in theory by the religious world as a whole.

Will they remain in their present position, which may be described as that of a Protestant Ethical Society, with mystical traditions and methods, part of an organized and nationalized world-church, suffering the necessary limitations of a body thrown open to all, converted and unconverted, committed to the necessity of teaching doctrinal “half-truths,” organizing necessarily in the interest of conduct as an end? or will they constitute themselves an order within, and co-operating with, the church—an order of lay mystics, held together externally by the sane and simple discipline laid down by Fox, and guarded thus from the dangers to which mysticism is perennially open; an order of men and women willing corporately to fulfil, while living in the daily life of the world, the conditions of revelation, and admitting to membership only those similarly willing; a “free” group of mystics ready to pay the price, ready to travel along the way trodden by all their predecessors, by all who have truly yearned for the uncreated Light?

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

1624.Birth of George Fox.
1647.Fox’s public ministry begins.
1650.Friends nicknamed Quakers by a Derby magistrate.
1652.Acquisition of headquarters at Swarthmoor Hall.
1654.Missions to the South and East.
1656.First Quakers in America.
1657.Fox appeals to Friends on behalf of their slaves.
1678.Barclay’s apology published in English.
1681.Pennsylvania founded.
1689.Toleration Act passed.
1691.Death of George Fox.
1760.Reform of Society of Friends.
1835.Modern Evangelical Revival.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

George Fox: Journal. Edited by Norman Penney. Cambridge University Press, 1911.

George Fox: Journal. Bi-centenary edition in two volumes. Headley.