[158] Sermon and prayer by Anna Braithwaite, delivered in Friends' Meeting, Arch Street, Philadelphia, October 26, 1825. Taken in short-hand by M. T. C. Gould, stenographer, p. 4-5.
There seem to have been some Friends desirous of producing a meeting between Anna Braithwaite and Elias Hicks during this visit. In Tenth month, 1825, she wrote him from Kipp's Bay, Long Island. She informed him of her arrival, and then stated "that if he wishes to have any communication with her, she is willing to meet him in the presence of their mutual friends, or to answer any letter he may write to her;" then she adds these remarkable words: "Having written to thee sometime ago, what I thought was right, I do not ask an interview."[159]
[159] "Christian Inquirer," new series, Vol. I, 1826, p. 57.
To this communication Elias Hicks made a somewhat full reply. He says that her notes of the conversation, "divers of which were without foundation," led him to wonder why she should even think of having any future communication with him. He then says:
"That I have no desire for any further communication with thee, either directly or indirectly, until thou makest a suitable acknowledgment for thy breach of friendship, as is required by the salutary discipline of our Society; but as it respects myself, I freely forgive thee, and leave thee to pursue thy own way as long as thou canst find true peace and quiet therein."[160]
[160] The same, p. 57.
It has to be said regretfully that during Anna Braithwaite's second visit to this country, she met with both personal and Society rebuffs. In some meetings her minute was read, but with no expression of approbation in the case. The Meeting of Ministers and Elders at Jericho appointed a committee,[161] to advise her not to appoint any more meetings in that neighborhood during her stay. A good many Friends objected to her family visits, and, taken altogether, her stay must have been one of trial.
[161] The same, p. 59.
She came again in the early part of the year 1827, and was here when the climax came in that year and the year following.
The English Friends, who were so much in evidence in our troubles, went home to face the Beacon controversy,[162] then gathering in England. The Beaconite movement caused several hundred Friends to sever their connection with the Society. But it did not reach the dignity of a division or a separation. Whether the English Friends profited by the experiences suffered by the Society in America is not certain. At any rate, they seem to have been able to endure their differences without a rupture.