“By their fruits ye shall know them.” It would ill become me to attempt any estimate of the fruitfulness of that branch of the Christian Church which I have joined as compared with the branch of it in which I was brought up. I have been occupied throughout with our ideal, not with the degree of our fulfilment or failure to fulfil it. I feel bound, however, to say that I cannot reconcile the fact of the signs of life and spiritual energy which I find within as well as without the Society with the idea that either branch of the Church is really cut off from the root of the living Vine. Does it follow that our peculiar principles and practices are of no consequence? I cannot myself believe that this is a legitimate conclusion from the admitted fact that undeniably holy and Christian lives are led within as well as without our borders. That fact does, I think, show at least that everything does not depend either upon the observance or the disuse of outward ordinances—it shows that either course may be pursued in good faith and without destruction to the Christian life; but it is not inconsistent with the belief that results of profound importance to the character of our Christianity are involved in this question of ordinances and orders, and that it therefore behoves us to seek the utmost clearness with regard to it. This question is the very key of the position of the Society of Friends as a separate body. It is as witnesses to the independence of spiritual life upon outward ordinances that we believe ourselves especially called to maintain our place in the universal Church in the present day. The importance of our separate position is perhaps somewhat obscured in the eyes of some amongst us by the fact that we can no longer assume the vehemently aggressive attitude of the early Friends, as against Christians of other denominations. They believed it to be their duty to attack the “hireling priests” of their day as guilty of “apostasy,” and upholders of the mysterious powers of darkness. In our own day such judgments would imply either the grossest ignorance or else downright insanity. We cannot help knowing, and rejoicing to know, that a large proportion of the clergy are amongst the most devoted and disinterested of the children of light, using their official position, as well as every other power of body and mind, for the promotion of the kingdom of God and the spread of the gospel. We desire nothing better than to fight beside them, shoulder to shoulder, against the common enemy; and we are, in fact, often associated with them in efforts of this kind.