Friendly and Unfriendly Critics. Few men in their day were more talked about than Elias Hicks. The interest in his person and in his preaching continued for years after his death. While the discussion ceased to be warm long years ago, his name is one which men of so-called liberal thought still love to conjure with, without very clearly knowing the reason why. Some clearer light may be thrown upon his life, labor and character by a brief review of opinions of those who criticised him as friends, and some of them as partisans, and those who were his open enemies, for the theological atmosphere had not yet appeared in which he could be even approximately understood by the men of the old school. We shall begin the collection of criticisms by quoting Edward Hicks,[194] who wrote a comparatively judicial estimate of his friend and kinsman. After stating that even the apostles had their weak side, that Tertullian "was led into a foolish extreme by the fanatical notions of Montanus;" and that Origen "did immense mischief to the cause of primitive Christianity by his extreme attachment to the Platonic philosophy, scholastic divinity and human learning," he remarks: [194] Edward Hicks, a relative of Elias Hicks, was born in Attleboro, Pa., Fourth month 4, 1780. His mother passed away when he was an infant, and he was cared for in his early youth by Elizabeth Twining, a friend of his mother. When a young man, he became a member of Middletown Monthly Meeting in Bucks County by request. He began speaking in meeting when about thirty years of age, and was a little later recorded as a minister. Edward Hicks for many years carried on the business of carriage maker and painter at Newtown, Pa. Although much more orthodox in doctrine than his celebrated kinsman, he was one of the most ardent friends and defenders of Elias Hicks.