A Book of Quaker SaintsHodgkin, L. V. (Lucy Violet)
Religion
A Book of Quaker Saints
Hodgkin, L. V. (Lucy Violet)
Society of Friends
_Is it really and truly true, that where two or three humble human
souls are gathered together in His Name, in the simplest possible
fashion, without any priest, or altar, or visible signs to help them,
yet our Lord is there? Can He be indeed among them still to-day? and
will He be forever, as He promised? feeding them Himself with the true
Bread of Life, satisfying their thirst with Living Water, baptizing
their souls with Power and with Peace?--_
_Children dear, you must answer these questions for yourselves,
fearlessly and honestly. No one else can answer them for you. The
answers may seem long in coming, but do not be in a hurry. They will
come in time, if you seek steadfastly and humbly. Only remember one
thing, as you think over these questions. Even if this is our way, the
right way for us, this very simple Quaker way that our forefathers won
for us at such a cost, still that does not necessarily make it the
right way for all other people too. God's world and God's plans are
much bigger than that. He brings His children home by numbers of
different paths, but for each child of His, God's straight way for
that child is the very best._
_The wise old Persians had a proverb, 'The ways unto God are as the
number of the souls of the children of men.' Let us remember this, if
we ever want to try to force other people to think about things
exactly as we do. Let us remember, too, that rivalry and pride, that
saying, or even thinking, 'My way is the only right way, and a much
better way than your way,' is the only really antiquated kind of
worship. The sooner we all learn to lay that aside, not in lavender
and tissue paper, but to cast it away utterly and forget that it ever
existed,--the better._
_It is not a bit of an excuse for us when we are inclined to judge
other people critically, to read in these stories that some of the
early Friends did and said harsh and intolerant things. They lived in
a much harsher, more intolerant age than ours. The seventeenth
century, as we know, has been called 'a dreadfully ill-mannered
century.' Let us do our very best not to give any one an excuse for
saying the same of this twentieth century in which we live. Thus, in
reading of these Quaker Saints, let us try to copy, not their
harshness or their intolerance, but their unflinching courage, their
firm steadfastness, their burning hope for every man; above all, their
unconquerable love._
_Remember the old lesson of the daisies. Each flower must open itself
as wide as ever it can, in order to receive all that the Sun wants to
give to it. But, while each daisy receives its own ray of sunshine
thankfully and gladly, it must rejoice that other very different rays,
at very different angles, can reach other flowers. Yet the Sun Heart
from which they all come is One and the Same. All the different ways
of worship are One too, when they meet in the Centre._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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