"One cannot help feeling that this strong stand for the ultimate right was far more responsible for success than the more timid one, and should encourage such action in other great causes. In fact, the ideal Quaker method would seem to be patient waiting for enlightenment on the underlying principle, which when seen is so absolutely clear and convincing that no outer difficulties or suffering can affect it: its full implications gradually appear, and its ultimate triumph can never be doubted. Any advance towards it, may be accepted as a stepping stone, although only methods consistent with Quaker ideals may be used to gain the desired end. Doing anything tinged with evil, that good may come, is entirely contrary to their ideas."[128]
She goes on to say, "As ever, the exact line of demarcation between methods aggressive enough to arouse the indolent and those beyond the bounds of Quaker propriety was indeed difficult to draw."[129]
In such a statement we find a conception of compromise which is different from that usually encountered. In it the advocate of the ideal says that for the time being he will accept less than his ultimate goal, provided the change is in the direction in which he desires to move, but he will not accept the slightest compromise which would move away from his goal.
FOOTNOTES:
[125] Case, Non-Violent Coercion, 92-93.
[126] Rufus M. Jones, The Quakers in the American Colonies, 175-176.
[127] Jones, Quakers in the Colonies, 459-494; Isaac Sharpless, A Quaker Experiment in Government (Philadelphia: Alfred J. Ferris, 1898), 226-276.
[128] Fry, Quaker Ways, 171-172.
[129] Ibid., 177.