[193] "Journal," p. 430.
In 1829, under date of Seventh month 9th, in a letter written at Oblong, in Westchester County, New York, he expresses the feeling that the meeting at Jericho sustains important relations to the branch of Friends with which he was connected. The letter was written to his children, Valentine and Abigail Hicks. In it he says:
"Although absent in body, yet my mind pretty often takes a sudden and instantaneous excursion to Jericho, clothed with a desire that we who constitute that monthly meeting, may keep our eye so single, to the sure and immovable foundation of the light within, so as to be entirely preserved from all fleshly reasonings, which if given way to, in the least degree, ever has, and ever will, have a tendency to divide in Jacob and scatter in Israel. I consider that much depends upon the course we take in our monthly meeting, as we are much looked up to as an example and if we make but a small miss, it may do much harm."
Twelfth month 15, 1829, Elias Hicks wrote to his friend Johnson Legg, evidently in reply to one asking advice in regard to his own conduct in relation to the "separation." In this letter Elias says: "In the present interrupted and disturbed state of our once peaceful and favoured Society, it requires great deliberation and humble waiting on the Lord for counsel before we move forward on the right hand or the left. Had this been the case with our brethren of this yearly meeting who style themselves orthodox, I very much doubt if there would have been any separation among us. For although the chief cause thereof is placed to my account, yet I am confident I have given no just cause for it."
This statement undoubtedly expresses the real feeling of Elias Hicks regarding the "separation." He could not see why what he repeatedly called "mere opinions" should cause a rupture in the Society. It will be noted that he still refers to the other Friends as "our brethren," and he, apparently, had no ill-will toward them. The letter from which this extract was taken was written only about two months before his death, and was undoubtedly his last written word on the unfortunate controversy, and the trouble that grew out of it.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Friendly and Unfriendly Critics.
Few men in their day were more talked about than Elias Hicks. The interest in his person and in his preaching continued for years after his death. While the discussion ceased to be warm long years ago, his name is one which men of so-called liberal thought still love to conjure with, without very clearly knowing the reason why. Some clearer light may be thrown upon his life, labor and character by a brief review of opinions of those who criticised him as friends, and some of them as partisans, and those who were his open enemies, for the theological atmosphere had not yet appeared in which he could be even approximately understood by the men of the old school.