Meeting place

“ The men, mostly the older men, run the meeting and often are the meeting. Their influence may be out of all proportion to their numbers. It is they who decide the place where the local shall meet and the hour at which members shall assemble. ”

“ Much depends on the place of meeting—much on the time—much on the crowded or empty state of the streets, and much, of course, on the degree of your intimacy with him, and the distance of time since you last met. ”

“ It is this, we confess, that weighs upon the heart, and leads us to pen this brief address to every assembly under the sun. Every soul in the [24] meeting is either a help or a hindrance, a contributor or a waster. All who attend in a devout, earnest, loving spirit; who come simply to meet the Lord Himself; who flock to the assembly as the place where His precious name is recorded; who delight to be there because He is there—all such are a real help and blessing to a meeting. May God increase their number. ”

“ The advantages of a weekly meeting, for conversation, might be great enough to repay the trouble of attendance, if they consisted only in supplying a point of union to well-educated and thinking women, in a city which, with great pretensions to mental refinement, boasts, at present, nothing of the kind, and where I have heard many, of mature age, wish for some such means of stimulus and cheer, and those younger, for a place where they could state their doubts and difficulties, with a hope of gaining aid from the experience or aspirations of others. ”

“ Not finding the letter, she loosened her hair; still it was not there. Then she searched in different parts of the house. Not finding it anywhere, she concluded that the former place of meeting must be the place, and again started. ”

“ Romer. The Social Meeting is an old institution of this village; and though it is not exactly a church affair, I believe it is almost entirely frequented by church-goers. I have always felt that it served an invaluable purpose in this place. It is indeed the only occasion when priest and people can meet on equal terms and discuss these great questions man to man. No—no, Lickwit, I cannot for a moment consent to the closing of the Social Meeting. ”

“ It is very observable that meetings, where those things are apparent, are generally in a declining state. I was exercised in a plain way of dealing with those delinquents, showing them the hurtful tendency of such conduct. Truth prevailed, and many hearts were much tendered, and the hands of the faithful strengthened; to the Lord only wise be the praise of his own work, who is over all, worthy for ever.
The 23d we attended a meeting at a place called the Gap, where there was a small meeting of Friends. ”

“ The place of meeting, and rules of the society, shall be established, revoked or altered, and new members admitted, at any of the stated meetings, by a majority of the attending members, if they be a majority of those present, not being less than one-fourth of the whole. ”

“ The meeting house is the place where the table is spread, where the food is prepared by the eternal spirit, and when we go there and hear men speak to us under the influence of that spirit, and we are in possession of the same spirit—we are fed, we grow and increase, and the roots and fibres of our being run deeper, and so enable us to "bring forth more fruit." ”

“ Where the girls and young ladies are sure to be, there the boys and young men are apt to be; and so it comes that when the meeting, especially the "big meeting," is to be held, the people throng. And if you want to see a genuine democracy, untainted by any kind of aristocracy, you could not find it better illustrated than among the hills, [pg 187] at meeting time, in some log "church-house." No Sir Wonderful to claim best pew, no usher to give you the place he chooses. ”

“ On fifth day we attended Friends’ meeting at Middlesex; and on sixth and seventh days, had meetings appointed for us at a place called the Saw Pits, and at Friends’ meeting-house at North Castle. All these meetings were seasons of favour, in which the divine presence was felt to preside, solemnizing the assemblies, and affording ability to minister to the people in gospel authority, and tendering and contriting many hearts. To the Lord be all the praise, nothing due to man. ”

“ On some we are never long without the sound of wheels, and folk pass us by so thickly that we lose the sense of their number. But on others, about little-frequented districts, a meeting is an affair of moment; we have the sight far off of some one coming towards us, the growing definiteness of the person, and then the brief passage and salutation, and the road left empty in front of us for perhaps a great while to come. ”

“ The meeting-house is a community centre drawing to itself like a magnet family groups and individuals from miles around, overcoming their isolation and breaking into the daily monotony of their lives, and with its worship and its sermon awakening new thoughts and impulses for the enrichment of life. ”

“ They vary in size from a chance meeting of two or three friends who stop on the street corner and separate after a few minutes of conversation, to the great mass-meeting, that is called for a special purpose and interests a whole neighborhood, but adjourns sine die. ”

“ A lady once said to me of a certain gentleman and lady whom she missed from her circle, 'They have been at our house every Wednesday evening for twenty years.' It seems to me that this frequency of meeting is the great secret of agreeable society. ”

“ Resolved, That meeting-houses are places constructed for the convenience of the people, and that nothing ought to be admitted into them that is opposed to public sentiment, or which can possibly offend it. ”

“ The meeting-house stands in one of the allées, and although its position is not central, it is sufficiently public to be an object of attraction to the curiosity of strangers. A memorandum under date of the 18th of the Sixth Month records the royal visit, and John Yeardley's spiritual exercise on the occasion. ”

“ You will see this class of men at meetings, and conventions, both political and religious, without the most distant idea of promoting the objects of the meeting, convention, etc., as the case may be, but with no higher aim than introducing their idea to notice, making the meeting an engine, and men, met under other obligations, and with the ostensible object of the meeting before them, instruments to carry the pet idea on the high road to fame. ”

“ But if you will go into the streets, you will find certain persons in the different Wards who have an excuse for not attending meeting. Some are so very industrious that they cannot attend meeting. I would not doubt much but what we could now go to several houses and find women at work; they are so very industrious. ”

“ In the case of a permanent society, having regular meetings every week, month, or year, for example, each meeting constitutes a separate session of the society, which session however can be prolonged by adjourning to another day. ”

“ The meeting was very orderly conducted, and the business managed in much harmony and condescension. The public meetings have been very large, favoured seasons, and all the meetings we have attended in our passing along have been generally very large. Seldom any houses were found large enough to contain the people. Often hundreds were under the necessity of standing out doors. Many of the people without came a great way to be at our meeting. ”

“ Suppose for a week you try to discover what it means to be a good neighbor, and report next Friday. The rest of my plan is very simple. To hold meetings every week or once in two weeks, as you choose, and I have some fascinating work which I know you can learn to do, and surprise the girls. I shall have it ready for the next meeting, and while you work we can have reading, or you can select a subject to discuss. ”

“ The particular passages and management of this meeting, as also of that other which followed soon after, they refusing to give us any other public meeting, we were fain to appoint in our own meeting-house, by Wheeler Street, near Spitalfields, London, and gave them timely notice of, I forbear here to mention; there being in print a narrative of each, to which for particular information I refer the reader. ”

“ In the country, we are obliged to steer by the meeting-houses alone. Yet the meeting-house is a kind of wind-mill, which runs one day in seven, turned either by the winds of doctrine or public opinion, or more rarely by the winds of Heaven, where another sort of grist is ground, of which, if it be not all bran or musty, if it be not plaster, we trust to make bread of life. ”

“ If a wider range of support be needed, persons interested in the subject may be invited by a letter in the local newspapers or otherwise, to a meeting which may be held at a private residence, or in any convenient public room. ”

“ In meetings consisting of a half dozen or more people, it has been found advisable to have, in addition to a chairman and a secretary, more rules and more formality than in a meeting of three or four persons. ”

“ The next day we attended their monthly meeting, which proved a time of deep exercise to my spirit; occasioned, as I believed, by the dead and lifeless state of the professors of truth in that meeting. I sat through the meeting for worship in silence, under a great weight of death and suffering, and saw no way of relief until near the close of the meeting for discipline, when a prospect opened in my mind, with a degree of light, to propose to Friends, that the men and women should sit together again at the close of their business. ”

“ At nearly every meeting we have in addition to our regular work, abstracts, essays, select readings, music and Chautauqua games; and these combined with our solid work make our meetings very interesting and pleasing to our members.
Massachusetts (Hyde Park) .—We have a flourishing circle. Hold meetings once a fortnight. ”

“ If any of you feel that there is no life in your meetings, as I occasionally hear some of the brethren say, then it becomes {264} your duty to go and instill life into that meeting, and do your part to produce an increase of the Spirit and power of God in the meetings in your locality. ”

“ She is in touch with, has, as we have seen, her stake and her responsibility in regard to every single activity of the meeting of which she is a member. Through every meeting and through every home, moreover, there is the cleansing and ventilating ebb and flow of the life of the whole society, and this not merely by means of the circulation of matter relating to the deliberations and the work of the society, but also in the form of personal contact. ”

“ I happen to think that any time you can begin three days into your term and have a meeting with somebody who advocates something that's important and something that many people think you're far apart, and it becomes clearer and clearer you're not so far apart, and both parties say it's a good meeting, then the process is beginning on the right note. ”

“ It is best to begin as you can hold out. A great meeting, a vast roll of by-laws, a regiment of officers, a parade of speeches, these make a fine meeting, and that’s all. Let a few stanch friends to improvement put their heads and hands together, without show or noise; begin at the little end, and hold fast what is gained. ”

“ It has some of the characteristics of a "camp- meeting." People come from long distances, and as many as two thousand and three thousand assemble together. They quarter themselves without special invitation upon the members of the inviting church. ”

“ Some things look rather as if it might be; for new Friends' Meeting-houses are being built in crowded cities to-day where even the high tide of long ago never came. But then, in lonely country places like Come-to-Good, scattered up and down all over England, there are many of these deserted Meeting-houses, where hardly anybody comes now or only comes out of curiosity. ”

“ When I had got the pledge from him I told the people that Thursday’s meeting would only be a prayer meeting. But after this some of the people went to him and he turned round again, and said it was a business meeting. I know that he said no business should be done at that meeting, and afterwards said it should be a business meeting. I then saw that this was a deep and cunning plan laid to divide the best people that ever lived. ”

“ But every coming hour will bring relief. You will cease to look back to the bitter parting, and you will look forward to the happy meeting. And that meeting may be as soon as you please, sir, you know. There is nothing on earth to prevent or even delay your visit to Lady Vincent as soon after she gets settled at home, as you like. ”

“ I have the satisfaction of inclosing the last proceedings of our Town meeting, in which I think you will perceive a Coincidence with your own Judgment, in a plan concerted for the whole to act upon. Our timid sort of people are disconcerted, when they are positively told that the Sentiments of the Country are different from those of the City. ”

“ But in civilization generally when we part we either look forward to meeting again at some not remote period, or we have so many varied occupations, or so many friends around us, that if the partings are welded together, so also are the meetings. ”

“ We arrived on seventh day evening at Dunning’s Creek, where there is a monthly meeting of Friends. They lie very much detached from the body of society; the nearest meeting to them is about sixty miles distant. We attended their meeting on first day, which proved, through heavenly help, a comfortable, strengthening opportunity. ”