The Life and Labors of Elias Hicks

by Henry Watson Wilbur

Rapidly the trouble ran back to the opposition raised by the elders in 1822. Eventually Green Street Monthly Meeting became the center of Society difficulty. It will be remembered that in the year last written that monthly meeting had enjoyed a family visitation from Elias Hicks, and had subsequently given him a minute of approval. After this one of the elders, who acquiesced in this action, joined the other nine in written disapproval of Elias Hicks. The major portion of the monthly meeting proposed to take the inconsistent conduct of this elder under care, and the matter was handed over to the overseers. In thus hastily invoking the discipline, Green Street Monthly Meeting made an apparent error of judgment, even admitting that the spirit of the transaction was not censurable. This brought the Quarterly Meeting of Ministers and Elders precipitously into the case. Finally Green Street Monthly Meeting released the Friend in question from his station as elder. A question arose on which there was a sharp discussion as to whether elders were independent of the overseers in the exercise of their official duties. A long line of conduct followed, finally resulting in the Quarterly Meeting of Ministers and Elders sending a report to the general quarterly meeting, amounting to a remonstrance against Green Street Monthly Meeting. This appeared to be a violation of Discipline, which said: "None of the said meetings of ministers and elders are in anywise to interfere with the business of any meeting for discipline."[131] These matters, with the remonstrance of the released Green Street elder, would therefore seem to have been irregularly brought before the quarterly meeting. It was claimed by the friends of Elias Hicks that he had broken no rule of discipline; that the charge, that he held "sentiments inconsistent with the Scriptures, and the principles of Friends," was vague as to its matter, and purely personal as to the manner of its circulation. Up to this point it should be remembered, the controversy was almost entirely centered on Elias Hicks.

[131] Rules of Discipline of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, held in Philadelphia, 1806, p. 67.

This matter dragged along, a source of constant disturbance, appearing in perhaps a new form in the Quarterly Meeting of Ministers and Elders in Eighth month, 1826. The immediate action involved appointing a committee to assist the Preparative Meeting of Ministers and Elders of Green Street Monthly Meeting, the assumed necessity in the case being the reported unsoundness of a Green Street minister, a charge to this effect having been preferred by one member only. The situation, however, caused an abatement in answering the query relating to love and unity. While these transactions were going on among the ministers and elders, Green Street Monthly Meeting took action which removed two of its elders from that station in the Society. The two deposed elders took their grievances to the general quarterly meeting. While the quarterly meeting would not listen to a statement of grievances, yet a committee to go over the whole case was appointed. The committee thus appointed, without waiting any action by the quarterly meeting, transformed the removal of the aggrieved elders into an appeal, and then demanded that Green Street Monthly Meeting turn over to that committee all the minutes relating to the case of the two elders. This the Green Street Meeting refused to do. Although the case had never been before the quarterly meeting, the committee of inquiry reported to the full meeting, that all of the action of Green Street Monthly Meeting relating to the two elders should be annulled. It was claimed that, by virtue of the leadership which the Orthodox had in the quarterly meeting, a precedent had been established which gave committees the right to exceed the power conferred upon them by the meeting which appointed them. The committee had not been appointed to decide a case, but to investigate a complaint.

Following this experience, after much wrangling, and in the midst of manifest disunity, and against what it was claimed was the manifest opposition of the major portion of the meeting, the quarterly meeting in Eleventh month, 1826, appointed a committee to visit the monthly meetings. This committee was manifestly one-sided, but could have no possible disciplinary service from extending brotherly care. Nevertheless at the quarterly meeting in Fifth month, 1827, this committee, for presumed gospel labor, reported that the large Green Street Monthly Meeting should be laid down, and its members attached to the Northern District Monthly Meeting. It is not necessary to enter into any argument as to the right of a quarterly meeting, under our system, to lay down an active monthly meeting, without that meeting's consent. The laying down of Green Street Monthly Meeting followed, the "separation" in the yearly meeting. It should be said that in Second month, 1827, Green Street Monthly Meeting, attempted to secure consent from the quarterly meeting to transfer itself to Abington Quarterly Meeting, and subsequently this was done.

The claim was made, and with some show of reason, that the various lines of conduct taken against Green Street Monthly Meeting, were incited by a desire to punish this meeting for its friendly interest in Elias Hicks.

We are rapidly approaching the point where the Society troubles in Philadelphia ceased to directly relate to Elias Hicks. It will be remembered that there was trouble touching the preaching of Elias coming by way of Southern Quarterly Meeting in 1822. The facts indicate that a majority of that meeting was quite content to let matters rest. It seems, however, that two members of the Meeting for Sufferings from that quarter had misrepresented their constituency in the Hicks controversy. Therefore in 1826 that quarterly meeting discontinued the service of the two members of the Meeting for Sufferings, supplying their places with new appointments. This action was objected to by the full meeting, the majority holding that members could not have their service discontinued by the constituent bodies which appointed them. An attempt was made to convince Southern Quarterly Meeting that it was improper and illegal to appoint new representatives, if the old ones were willing to serve. It was also claimed that it was "never intended to release the representatives from a quarterly meeting to the Meeting for Sufferings, except at their own request."[132] Surely the Discipline then operative gave no warrant for such an inference.[133] Assuming that the above contention was valid, the Meeting for Sufferings would simply have become a small hierarchy in the Society, never to be dissolved, except at its own request.

[132] "Cockburn's Review," p. 170.

[133] Rules of Discipline of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, held in Philadelphia, 1806, p. 54-55.

It would seem, however, that the rules governing the Meeting for Sufferings were especially made to guard against just such an exercise of power as has been mentioned. The Discipline under the heading, "Meeting for Sufferings," contained this provision: "The said meeting is not to meddle with any matter of faith or discipline, which has not been determined by the yearly meeting."[134] This will make it plain why there was such an anxiety that the statement of doctrine issued in 1823,[135] should be endorsed by the yearly meeting, and when that failed, how utterly the statement was without authority or binding force on the Society in general or its members in particular.

[134] The same, p. 55.