Quaker

“ On Monday morning, we took the stage-coach at Middlebury for this place. An old Quaker, in a broad-brimmed hat and a coat of the ancient cut, shaped somewhat like the upper shell of the tortoise, came to hand in his granddaughter, a middle-aged woman, whom he had that morning accompanied from Lincoln, a place about eighteen miles distant, where there is a Quaker neighborhood and a Quaker meeting-house. The denomination of Quakers seems to be dying out in the United States, like the Indian race; not that the families become extinct, but pass into other denominations. ”

“ The very garments of a Quaker seem incapable of receiving a soil; and cleanliness in them to be something more than the absence of its contrary. Every Quakeress is a lily; and when they come up in bands to their Whitsun-conferences, whitening the easterly streets of the metropolis, from all parts of the United Kingdom, they show like troops of the Shining Ones. ”

“ There are few spots on the earth more serene and lovely than Quaker Hill. There is an ethereal beauty over the blue waterways and bountiful farms, a “Gulf Stream influence” it is called, that seems almost spiritual, and we do not wonder that the good old Quaker spirit should have found its sympathetic atmosphere here. After the long past, the Gospel of the Inner Light and universal Love is still preached on the self-same serene hill of Portsmouth looking over to Mount Hope,—the ancient burying-ground of the Indian race,—the Narragansett Bay, and the sinking sails of the far sea. ”

“ I never felt so proud in all my life as when I went back to Quaker Hill that day, a camlet cloak on my back, and a vision of angels, for aught I could say, hovering over my new silk hood. I imagined I was one of the old patriarchs. What would Quaker Almy say now? Wa’n’t I as good as anybody? ”

“ I know of no fact more striking, or more true in the Quaker-history, than this, namely, that the young Quaker, who is educated as a Quaker, gets such a knowledge of human nature, and of the paths to wisdom and happiness, at an early age, that, though he is known to be a young mariner by the youth displayed in his countenance, he is enabled to conduct his bark through the dangerous rocks and shoals of life, with greater safety than many others, who have been longer on the ocean of this probationary world. ”

“ It is not easy to divert the Quaker from his course; we swung to the right, but the wing of the car, on my side, struck the man full in the chest. He fell as instantly and solidly as if he were a stone pillar, and, like a stone, he lay in the mud. ”

“ The Quaker would not show fight! He was actually giving them leave to set upon him and beat him again! All in a minute, what had hitherto seemed like rare sport began to be rather poor fun.
'There's no sense in thrashing a man who doesn't strike back! Better leave the fellow alone!' some of the more decent-minded whispered to each other in undertones, and then slunk away ashamed. Only one man, a mason, well known as the bully of the town, knew no shame.
'Strike again, sayest thou, Quaker?' he thundered. 'Hast had none but soft blows hitherto? ”

“ Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance. ”

“ The Quakers have been celebrated for the pertinacity with which they avoid giving a direct answer, but what Quaker could ever vie with a Yankee in this sort of fencing? Nothing, in fact, can equal their skill in evading a question, excepting that with which they set about asking one. I am afraid that in repeating a conversation which I overheard on board the Erie canal boat, I shall spoil it, by forgetting some of the little delicate doublings which delighted me—yet I wrote it down immediately. ”

“ Amongst the few converts made in Oxford, however, was the man who, in his turn, brought William Penn into the Quaker fold. In pious London, sunk in theological strife, the obscure Waiters, Ranters, and Seekers were the most favourable soil.
The Quakers, however, worked everywhere, ploughing up the land, calling men to cease the strife of words, and to wait before the Lord for living experience. ”

“ Probably a worse fate awaited the Brooklyn boy, who, called upon to explain the meaning of ‘Quaker,’ wrote: ‘A Quaker is one of a sect who never quarrel, never get into a fight, never claw each other, and never jaw back. ”

“ The first outward fact that presents itself to us, is the fact of the origin of the Quaker-dress, if the early Quakers, when they met in religious union, had met to deliberate and fix upon a form or standard of apparel for the society, in vain could any person have expected to repel this charge. ”

“ There is one trait in the Quaker-manners, which runs through the whole society, as far as I have seen in their houses, and which is worthy of mention. The Quakers appear to be particularly gratified, when those, who visit them, ask for what they want. Instead of considering this as rudeness or intrusion, they esteem it as a favour done them. The circumstance of asking, on such an occasion, is to them a proof, that there visitors feel themselves at home. Indeed they almost always desire a stranger who has been introduced to them "to be free." ”

“ A Quaker in low circumstances, but of unblemished life, has been occasionally chosen as one of the deputies to the metropolis even for a county, where the Quaker-population has been considered to be rich. ”

“ The young Quaker, on the other hand, comes, by means of his education, to the same maxims of philosophy and religion, as the foundation of his happiness, at a very early period of life, and therefore saves the time, and preserves the constitution which the other has been wasting for want of this early knowledge. ”

“ But were the Quakers really narrow, or were they any more narrow than other rigorously self-disciplined people: Spartans, Puritans, soldiers whose discipline enables them to achieve great results? All discipline is in one sense narrow. Quaker quietude and retirement probably conserved mental energy instead of dissipating it. In an age of superstition and irrational religion, their minds were free and unhampered, and it was the dominant rational tone of their thought that enabled science to flourish in Pennsylvania. ”

“ I see no absurdity in a set of men meeting as the Quakers do, and sitting in silent contemplation, reflecting on the errors of their past life, and resolving to amend in future. I think an honest, good Quaker, as respectable a being as an Archbishop ”

“ They were outward and visible evidences of the doctrine of Quaker "development." The idea is not dead. The spirit is living still. It is the spirit that underlies all real religion—namely, the personal relation of the human soul to God as the source of illumination. That young man was as good a Quaker at heart as George Fox or William Penn themselves; and the "apology" he offered for his transformed faith was a better one than Barclay's own. I am wondering whether the Conference will come to anything like so sensible a conclusion as to why Quakerism is declining. ”

“ The working out of the logical insecurity of the Quaker position is interestingly shown in the person of George Keith, intellectually the richest of the early Quakers, a man whose writings have been acknowledged by his fellows, and would still stand if he had not left the group, as amongst the best expositions of the Quaker attitude. ”

“ This trait is, I believe, almost as generally admitted by the world, as that of benevolence. It is a matter of frequent observation, that you seldom see an irascible Quaker. And it is by no means uncommon to hear persons, when Quakers are the subject of conversation, talking of the mysteries of their education, or wondering how it happens, that they should be able to produce in their members such a calmness and quietness of character. ”

“ It does me good for the rest of the day when I meet any of their people in my path. When I am ruled or disturbed by any occurrence, the sight or quiet voice of a Quaker acts upon me as a ventilator, lightening the air, and taking off a load from the bosom; but I cannot like the Quakers, as Desdemona would say, “to live with them.”—Charles Lamb.
Sheep, leather, and religion were the principal things which George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, looked after. In boyhood he was a shepherd, in youth a shoemaker, in manhood an expounder of Christianity. ”

“ In many respects the Quakers may be compared with the Mennonites. The Quaker Church was founded in the middle of the seventeenth century by an Englishman, John Fox, and spread to America as early as 1656, where it now numbers, perhaps, 400,000 persons, living chiefly in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The Quakers lay great emphasis on silence, and even in their meetings they observe long pauses, in which each member communes with the Holy Spirit. ”

“ The direction of this tendency and the definition of the movement were vitally influenced by certain zealous and philanthropic Quaker missionaries from England, Stephen Grellet and William Allen, who visited Norway in 1818. Grellet was a French nobleman who sought refuge in the United States during the French Revolution, and there united himself with the Quakers or Friends. After residing in America for twelve years, he began making tours through Europe to propagate Quaker ideas, even obtaining an interview with the Pope, which he describes in his diary. ”

“ From another quarter came the assurance that I was wrong when I set up a tombstone with a name upon it in a Quaker graveyard. I received a sarcastic letter from a lady on the borders of Sussex and Surrey upon this point, and I immediately sent her a first-class railway ticket to enable her to visit the Quaker churchyard at Croydon, in Surrey, where dead and gone Quakers have tombstones by the score, and inscriptions on them also. It is a good thing to be accurate; it is desperately essential in a novel. ”

“ Neither could be, if at a great distance from home, and if quite out of the eye and observation of persons of the same religious persuasion, do what many others do. For a Quaker knows, that many of the customs of the society are known to the world at large, and that a certain conduct is expected from a person in a Quakers habit. ”

“ But as Quaker servants, who live in genuine Quaker families, wear no liveries, nor any badges of poverty or servitude, there is nothing in the opposite scale to produce an opposite feature in their character. ”

“ The same statement may be made of the pervasive example of the Quaker character upon other areas of population; servants who come from the city, summer guests, artistic people who love the Hill for its beauty and suggestiveness, ministers and other public teachers who come hither.
The area to the southeast, called "Coburn," settled to a degree by those who have worked on the Hill in times past as employees, is touched with the same manner. Its meeting [113] house, erected over sixty years ago, even retains the Quaker way of seating the men and women apart. ”

“ Perchance the Holy Spirit will inspire some among them to speak or to pray. They are not thus gathered because this is the Quaker custom, for they are not Quakers; they are simply following a distinct command of the Master and awaiting the fulfilment of one of His promises.
William Edmundson, the Quaker preacher, driven by a storm into New London harbor on a Saturday in May, 1675, goes ashore there and endeavors to gather a meeting, but is prevented by the authorities. ”

“ And during the last ten years—the years which have seen such a striking revival of the interest in mysticism, have felt a clearing and a growth of the recognition of the importance to the race as a whole of mystical genius, have produced a mass of seriously undertaken studies of this phenomenon from every point of approach—the Quaker church has continued increasingly to fulfil this function. Not only from the sects, but from the older establishments, and from the ranks of religiously unclassified “philosophy” and “culture,” there is a steady migration towards the Quaker fold. ”

“ The Quakers went through their period of martyrdom in the seventeenth century. In the midst of a heterogeneous state of religious parties, the Quaker movement stands out with great distinctness as the only religious movement in which245 women were recognized as leaders and teachers. The Quakers began to preach in London about the year 1654, five years after George Fox’s imprisonment. ”

“ Wherever Quakers are found they are the useful and steady citizens. Their eminence seems out of all proportion to their comparatively small numbers. It has often been asked why this height of attainment should occur among a people of such narrow religious discipline. ”

“ And here it may be remarked, that the Quaker education, by means of its prohibitions, greatly disqualifies its young members, who may desert from the society, from acting prudently afterwards. They will be, in general, but children, and novices in the world. Kept within bounds till this period, what is more probable than that, when they break out of them, they will bunch-into excess. A great river may be kept in its course by paying attention to its banks, but if you make a breach in these restrictive walls, you let it loose, and it deluges the plains below. ”