Or turn to the great non-Christian world with which we are daily brought into contact. Here is one of the greatest problems, if not the greatest, which confronts our civilization to-day. How are we going to meet our fellow-men of other races? The [92] ]politician has his solution: the commercial man has his. What is to be the solution of the citizen of the Kingdom of God? There can only be one answer: we must go to these men as to those who are our brethren; we must see them not as wholly bad or depraved, but as those who have in them infinite potentialities, who are called into the same citizenship and the same sonship which we enjoy. We must reaffirm to-day our belief in that Light which lighteth every man, but we dare not be content at that. As our forefathers led the way in the understanding of sympathy with other races; so we to whom these still more intricate problems present themselves, must stand for the ideal, however hard it seems—the ideal of spiritual kinship and the strenuous effort to realize it in our relationship with other races; and so it comes about that the Foreign Missionary enterprise seems to be of the very essence of Quakerism, and that we find it closely akin to the great causes of Peace and Anti-slavery with which our Society has ever been identified. Is the Church of Christ playing [93] ]the part which it ought to play in regard to these matters? Is it taking the stand which it ought to take in regard to the color problem in this country, in regard to the export of spirituous liquors, and so forth? What, indeed, is to be our view of a Christian Mission College which deliberately includes in its curriculum military drill with the full paraphernalia of warfare, and this in the traditionally peace-loving empire of China? To me it seems evident that there is a great place for the Society of Friends in this movement, just because we stand upon the side of idealism in all these complicated issues.

Right along the line Quakerism ranks itself on this side. The Society of Friends, as I read its history, has stood for an idealism which is well in advance of the current practice. In the holding of our Meetings for Worship we have stood for the absolute ideal; many of our Christian brethren admit it in theory, but regard it as quite outside the sphere of practical religion. The same seems to be true as regards the Sacraments, Oaths, and [94] ]so forth. The idealist is needed as much to-day as ever he was. The moral reforms, to the achievement of which Friends have contributed so much, have been attained by men who dared to be regarded as utterly impracticable, as mere dreamers and visionaries. When slavery, for example, was knit into the very fabric of Society, when its abolition seemed certain to lead to an industrial cataclysm, Friends were not wanting who boldly said, “Whatever happens, we must liberate the slave;” and in the end the visionary was right and the practical common-sense man was wrong; and the simple secret of it all was that the visionary saw God first and his fellow-men in the light of God’s will for them.

No less has it been true in business affairs that Friends have maintained the strictest standard of integrity in the face of opposition and probable loss. They recognized a higher obligation which must be obeyed whatever the consequence which faced them. And in the strength of that idealism they won their way to the respect and confidence of their fellows. In the end [95] ]they were often found to be the more practical in spite of (or was it because of?) their unreasoning idealism. “It was in this focussing upon moral effort that the Quakers differed most from the other sects of the Commonwealth period. Their ‘views’ were not novel or original. Every

one of their peculiar views had already been proclaimed by some individual or by some religious party. What was new was the fixing of their ideas into one living truth, which was henceforth to be done, was to be put into life and made to march.”[Footnote 7] ]

And to-day, if the Society is true to its past it will not lose the chance of standing on the same side for the ideal, the Christian and the only final solution of these complex problems. The Church needs a body of men and women who will dare to be fools, unpractical, dreamers, in following the Light and who will act up to their ideals.

VII.

Another outstanding feature of to-day, to which the Society of Friends ought to [96] ]have a special relation, is that which is spoken of as the Women’s Movement. This undoubtedly expresses much more than a political or social aspiration. It corresponds in some measure to the democratic movement and indicates the stirring of spiritual aspirations. Its symptoms are seen not only in the movement for women’s suffrage, and not only in Western countries. A recent book, published by the wife of one of the ruling chiefs of India, is symptomatic of great changes that are taking place all over the East. The book is a statement of the positions which are open to women in Western countries, and an urgent plea for the opening of these doors to the women of the East also. Although lacking in the realization of the difficulty of suddenly making so great a change in India, the book is well worthy of notice as indicating the stirrings of a new life among Indian women. Hardly any contrast could be imagined greater than their condition in the past and that which is sketched out for them in the future by the authoress of this book. Probably many [97] ]will have noticed that an incident in the deliberations of the Provisional National Convention of China at Nanking was the presentation of a petition from the women of that country for the granting of women’s suffrage.

I was recently made vividly aware of the vast difference between the practice of Friends and that of other Christian denominations by the consideration of a report on the relations between men and women in the mission field, which was presented to a representative Missionary Conference in Great Britain last summer. The report urged that an equal share in the management of mission affairs should be given to women, and brought forward a strong array of reasons in favor thereof. It was referred to by a member of one of the largest missionary societies as “a momentous report.” A lady Friend described it as “daring incursions into the obvious.” The fact is that we as Friends possess the very thing which some other Churches are beginning to realize they need. A brilliant writer and prominent Free Church leader [98] ]in Great Britain has recently asked the question why, in these days of the higher education of women, should the ministry be a monopoly of the men; and we Friends echo, with the thought of Elizabeth Fry and Hannah Chapman Backhouse and many another in our minds, “Why, indeed!” To the spiritual insight and courage of our forefathers we owe it, that in the Society of Friends we can say “There is neither male nor female.” I wonder if we sufficiently realize how great an heritage this is—how sacred a trust; and if we take sufficient pains to bring our message in this respect to the notice of others. If the women’s movement, with all its great possibilities, is to be a contribution, as it ought to be, to the building up of the Kingdom of God, the Churches need to adopt a sympathetic attitude towards it, and to express in their own organizations their readiness to adapt themselves to meet its ideals. If they are to do this with confidence, what greater stimulus could they have than the knowledge, which few outside our borders possess, I fear, of the [99] ]uniform experience of our Society throughout its history? The Church needs to realize with greater vividness how much the consecrated womanhood in her midst can contribute to her life, and to give women the fullest opportunity to make that contribution.

VIII.

If the women’s movement expresses, as it undoubtedly does, a spiritual aspiration, I think the same may be said with perhaps equal force of the labor movements in Western countries. That many working-men have been practically unable to develop the higher side of their nature, on account of the conditions of labor, is generally admitted. The movement for higher wages and better conditions of work is, after all, something more than the expression of a grievance against capital. There is the deep yearning for a fuller life. This great aspiration the Churches should recognize and seek to meet. Speaking for my own country, I can say that one of the great obstacles with which the Churches are confronted in dealing with the working-men [100] ]is the suspicion of the mercenary spirit. To the workingman, the clergyman is paid to do a certain job and must justify his existence. Of course this is a prejudice which is soon removed when the man gets into such personal relations with the minister as to feel the heartbeat of a true friendship, but often these personal relationships are hindered through the prejudice referred to. Do not these facts suggest that there is a need for one section of the Church which has not this disability and whose ministers are all laymen?