In our days faith is challenged at every point and at every turn, with a freedom and a violence which was unknown fifty years ago. All that can be shaken is being shaken, to its very foundations. My own firm belief is that, though full of danger, this is on the whole a natural, a necessary, and, in the main, a beneficial process. Throw a large load of fuel on a clear fire, and for a time it may seem doubtful whether it is not extinguished; but if the flame be strong enough, it will rise again through the smoke and dust, and burn the stronger for what it has mastered. And so assuredly will faith in whatever is truly eternal rise above all present confusions and darkenings of counsel, and burn with fresh power in those hearts which have steadfastly cleaved to truth, be its requirements what they may. The Society of Friends has always refused to require adhesion to any formularies as an express or even implied condition of membership; and surely it has done wisely.[31] It has frankly and steadily accepted the Bible as the one common standard and storehouse of written doctrine, but it has always had the courage to trust unreservedly to the immediate teaching of “the Spirit which gave forth the Scriptures” for their interpretation, and for the leading of each one “into all truth;” it has hitherto been true to its belief in the living Guide. And this, I am convinced, is the only belief which will meet the needs of the free thought of our day. If thought is to be truly free, in the sense of fearless and unbiased, it must not only be open to the whole range of experience, but it must be subject to the correction of central and unchanging principles; freedom requires stability as well as openness. I believe that those of us who have learned to submit to correction both from without and from within, who dare to face at once every real fact, and every necessary process of mental discipline, within their reach, have a most weighty office to fill amidst the troubled thoughts and lives of our day. For while human nature is what it is, it must recognize, however dimly, that it needs not only to be fed with knowledge, but to be strengthened with might in the inner man. People want, and must have if they are to be spiritually helped at all, two things mainly at this moment, as I believe. They want a higher, purer, worthier form of faith and worship than they have been accustomed to find provided for them; and they want stronger proof of the reality of the objects of faith than is commonly offered.