I have said that our corner-stone and foundation is our belief that God does indeed communicate with each one of the spirits He has made in a direct and living inbreathing of some measure of the breath of His own life. That belief is not peculiar to us. What is peculiar to us is our testimony to the freedom and sufficiency of this immediate Divine communication to each one. The ground of our existence as a separate body is our witness to the independence of the true gospel ministry of all forms and ceremonies, and of all humanly imposed limitations and conditions. We desire to guard this supreme function of the human spirit from all disturbing influences as jealously as the mariner guards his compass from anything which might deflect the needle from the pole; and for the same reason—that we believe the direct influence of the Divine Mind upon our own to be our one unerring Guide in the voyage of life, and that the faculty by which we discern it is but too easily drawn aside by human influences. There is, surely, a very deep significance and value in the Protestant instinct of independence in this deepest region. The Quaker tradition of “non-resistance” has attracted a degree of popular attention which is, I think, out of all proportion to that bestowed on the profound and stubborn independence of Quakerism—its resolute vindication of each man’s individual responsibility to his Maker, and to Him alone. The supreme value assigned by Friends to consistency of conduct—to strict veracity and integrity, and other plain moral duties—has, I believe, an intimate connection with their abandonment of all reliance upon outward observances, or official support and absolution. “The answer of a good conscience” comes into prominence when all extraneous means of purification are discarded. And when outward ordination is seen to be insufficient to enable any one effectually to minister to the deep needs of a troubled spirit, then that ministry which is truly the outcome of the fiery “baptisms” of Divinely appointed discipline assumes its true dignity in our eyes as the only real qualification for reaching the witness in other hearts.