| Personal experience of co-operation with other denominations in west China and elsewhere | [56[!-- TN: original lacks this page number in the ToC --] |
| An ideal of Christian unity | [57] |
| The Society of Friends in relation thereto | [58] |
| That which the Society holds in common with others | [62] |
| The attitude in which the contribution can be made | [63] |
| Summary of some contributions Friends have
already made. Need of first-hand experience—Religious toleration—Brotherhood of all races—High business standard—Practical philanthropy | [66] |
| Contribution of Friends to modern life. Direct personal intercourse with God—Modern drift to materialism—The greater danger in the child races—Proposed remedies—The positive message of Friends | [69] |
| [9]The quiet heart. The rush of modern life—The sense of need felt at home and abroad—Worship as a united inspired act—A high ideal to be reached | [76] |
| The leadership of the Spirit. From autocracy to democracy—The nationalist spirit in the East—The Quaker meeting for discipline—A theocratic ideal | [83] |
| Idealism. The danger of opportunism—Solution of the race problem—Place of the idealist | [89] |
| Woman’s contribution. The Woman’s Movement to-day—The emancipation of women in the East—The failure of the Church to respond—The experience of Friends | [95] |
| A non-professional ministry. The labor-movement an aspiration—Difficulty of the organized Churches—Danger abroad—Freedom of the ministry | [99] |
| The spirit of tolerance. Modern scholarship and the Bible—Suggested solutions of the difficulty—A grave peril—Where Friends can help | [104] |
| How the message is to be delivered. A fresh conviction—A fuller consecration—Large sympathy with others—A corporate sense of mission—Apostles | [109] |
PART I[ [11]
THE ESSENTIALS OF QUAKERISM
BY WILLIAM C. BRAITHWAITE
Introductory Words
It is with great diffidence that we from England venture to speak to the American Yearly Meetings. Our circumstances and the problems we have to face are often so different that it would be presumptuous in us to feel that we had advice on matters of detail that would deserve very great attention from you. But when it comes to our common history and to the common inheritance we have in the principles and faith of the Society of Friends, we may speak freely.
We represent the main body of those who call themselves “Friends.” The Yearly Meetings from which we come connect by continuous history with the first Quaker Churches of two hundred and fifty years [12] ]ago. Of course when we compare ourselves as we are now, with the first Friends, we find great differences, as great undoubtedly as exist between the New Englander of to-day and the Pilgrim Fathers. We should find much to astonish if we could peep in at one of those first London meetings held in the summer of the year 1655 at the Bull and Mouth, the great “tavern-chapel” in Aldersgate, in which you could then crowd a thousand people standing. I fancy these meetings may have been rather like some of your pioneer meetings in the West. But the pioneers of the London work, Howgill and Burrough, would find modern Quakerism, whether in England or in the Middle West, a strange thing. It takes a wise man to recognize his own great-great-great-great grandchildren. They have an inheritance that connects them up with their ancestor, but their environment is so different that on the surface they seem to have been changed into another type of man. At bottom, however, we shall find that the inherited type will continue.
“For never Pilgrims’ offshoot scapes control[ [13]
Of those old instincts that have shaped his soul.”
(Lowell, “Fitz Adam’s Story.”)