The essence of Quaker “testimony” is a practical witness-bearing—a lifting up in practice of the highest possible standard of uncompromising obedience to the teaching of Jesus Christ, both as recorded in the Gospels, and as inwardly experienced as the Light—the Spirit of Truth. Friends have, as a matter of fact, felt certain things to be inconsistent with this teaching which, by the great body of those who profess and call themselves Christians, are not regarded as being so. They have attacked these things not so much in words as by enjoining and observing a strict abstinence from them at any cost, in a spirit not unlike that of the Rechabites of old. The original Quaker idea was before all things to have “clean hands;” to stand clear of evil in one’s own person, but to abstain in silence unless specially called to speak.[16] It is, of course, impossible to abstain on conscientious grounds from what is freely practised by others without giving some offence. Any singularity of this kind will inevitably be understood as casting some shade of disapprobation, if not of actual blame, on the common practice. I do not see how we can avoid this offence unless we are content to sink to the level of least enlightenment. We must, I believe, nerve ourselves to endure the giving of it, remembering that the disciple is not above his Master, and that there was a time when our Master Himself had “no honour in His own country.” If they have heard His word, they will hear ours also. Meanwhile we may take heart from the knowledge that conduct destined to have permanent influence must often displease for a time. The early Friends, or “children of light,” as they sometimes called themselves, seem to have been drawn together in a kind of spontaneous unanimity on the main points in which their view of Christian duty transcended that of those about them. The Yearly Meeting, which was not constituted till 1672 (or twenty-four years from the date of George Fox’s beginning to preach), finding the “testimonies” against war, oaths, and superfluities already in full practice, expressly recognized them as belonging to “our Christian profession,” and directed inquiry as to the faithfulness of Friends in maintaining them to be made in certain queries addressed from time to time to all the subordinate meetings.